A Phantom in Paris
by Kimmeth
Summary: A monster is terrorising Paris, but when dancer Christine Daaé meets a stranger outside the Opéra Populaire, she finds more to him than meets the eye… Uses elements from 'A Monster in Paris'; not necessary to have seen it to understand the fic.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:** A monster is terrorising Paris, but when dancer Christine Daaé meets a stranger outside the _Opéra Populaire_, she finds more to him than meets the eye… Uses elements from 'A Monster in Paris'; not necessary to have seen it to understand the fic.

**Disclaimer:** The characters are not mine, they belong to Gaston Leroux. Some plot elements belong to 'A Monster in Paris', some belong to Phantom, all have been twisted and expanded to suit my own ideals! It is not necessary to have seen 'A Monster in Paris' to understand this, which is why I haven't flagged it as a crossover.

**Note:** I said I wouldn't post any new multi-chaptered fics until I finish my magnum opus. Open mouth, insert foot... But this idea would not go away and I wrote this chapter in about three hours flat, and because something coming into my head complete like that is quite rare, I posted it. Basically, I went to see 'A Monster in Paris' today and I was immediately struck with parallels to Phantom. Maybe it was just me, but the comparisons wouldn't go away. I thought: 'What if the 'monster' was not a giant insect, but in fact Erik?' And naturally, a downward spiral into plotting was thus begun…

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><p><strong>A Phantom in Paris<strong>

**One**

Christine Daaé was enjoying a rare moment of respite in the dressing room she shared in the depths of the _Opéra Populaire_. It was unusual for her to have the room to herself, and although Meg was her best friend and she loved her dearly as such, it was nice to have a little peace and quiet from her almost constant chatter now and then. Both girls had come to the opera house at around the same time; Christine had had no other place to go after the death of her father, and the arts provided the only trade she knew, having been brought up in theatres around the continent where her father performed. Meg had arrived at the opera and taken her place amongst the ballerinas almost by proxy when her mother had begun working there. They had become firm friends and constant companions almost immediately, the bolder Meg acting as a self-appointed guide and guardian to the timid Christine, and they had found their feet and their niches together. Although both were dancers, it was obvious to the rest of the _corps de ballet_, and none more so than Meg, that Christine's true passion and talent lay in music. One day, she hoped, she would be the star soprano with her name in block capitals upon the posters that advertised the latest season's productions. One day, her voice would make her name and her fortune, but not today. She could practice in the confines of her dressing room as much as she was able, but to truly tap into the potential of her talents she needed something else, someone else. She needed someone to help unlock the full secrets that her voice held. Tutors were expensive, however, and Christine had not the courage to speak to the opera's resident vocal coach or to the singers themselves to ask for assistance. Every time she had tried in the past, they had never taken her seriously, seeing only a ballerina, and no prima ballerina either. They brushed aside her nervous and halting queries, but Christine could not brush away her dreams as easily, no matter how much resistance she came up against. Her optimism, however, had begun to wane. Perhaps the angel of music that her father had promised, on his deathbed, to send to her from beyond the grave, had got lost along the way. He was certainly taking a long time in coming.

The peace in the room was short-lived as the door swung open and Meg ran in, panting.

"I only just got back in before _Maman_ realised I was gone," she said. "I'm going to go mad if she doesn't start trusting me soon!" She flopped onto the chair beside her friend to get her breath back and begin her preparations for the night's performance.

"It's not that she doesn't trust you; she's only concerned for your safety," Christine pointed out. Madame Giry was not a woman to be trifled with and indeed Christine had found her truly terrifying the first time that she had met her, but she had a kind heart beneath the stern exterior perpetually clad in mourning, and her daughter's welfare was her constant and only priority. "You know that they keep advising people not to go out alone after dark."

"I know, I know, but I just had to get the latest news!" Meg moaned. "We never hear anything shut up in the theatre all the time."

"And what is the latest news, as if I can't guess?" asked Christine. "They still haven't found it, then," she observed drily as Meg threw the evening newspaper down on her dressing table. The headline emblazoned in smudged newsprint across the front page read 'MONSTER SIGHTED AGAIN, WOMAN DIES OF FRIGHT'.

"Obviously not," replied Meg. "I simply can't believe that, considering how many people claim to have seen this terrifying beast, no-one has the faintest clue where he, she or it is hiding." She turned her head on one side and considered the densely packed text, full of hyperbolic adjectives that, as far as Christine could see, all appeared to be contradicting each other. "You know, I'm inclined to think that it's all a ruse. I mean, I'm fairly certain that the majority of these 'eyewitnesses' are only saying they've seen it to share in some of the fame. Part of me's convinced that there is no monster and it's all a joke by the papers to see how many people believe it and see how many people turn up saying that they've seen something that doesn't exist."

"I never had you down as such a cynic, Meg," said Christine. She picked up the paper and scanned the story. "You can't really deny a woman dying of fright, though."

"She was seventy-three," said Meg, wrinkling her nose in criticism of the evidence. "Anything could have killed her at that age."

Meg was obviously not going to be convinced easily, and Christine felt it better to give up prematurely than get into another pointless discussion about a theme that she could not evade however much she might wish to. The rumours of a mysterious monster loose in the streets of Paris had started a couple of weeks previously, and whilst they had begun as a whisper passed from mouth to mouth, now they were all over the press, the only topic of conversation, with every day and every printing unearthing new details that only served to make the entire affair more complicated. Although the monster was described as extremely dangerous, no-one had any evidence of its attacking anyone; there had been no bodies discovered, no grim trail of murder and destruction left in its wake – today's elderly lady and her heart attack notwithstanding. No two witnesses seemed to be able to describe the creature in the same way: some held it as over seven feet high with glowing red eyes, others gave it a hunchbacked stature and a deathly pale skin, others gave it the appearance of death itself, its head shrunken like a skull with only a hole where the nose should have been. No-one knew where it had come from or why; suddenly it was in Paris and causing chaos for no apparent reason. It's going to murder us all in our beds, screamed the papers, lock up your children and your wives and the best silver! Although, like Meg, Christine had her moments of scepticism, especially in the face of so many conflicting reports, she was certain that there had to be an element of truth in them somewhere, and the thought frightened her. She was inordinately glad that she resided within the safety of the theatre's old and sturdy walls and she rarely had cause to leave them, especially at night.

There was a sharp pre-emptory knock at the door before it opened.

"Christine, Meg… Marguerite Giry!" Meg's mother had entered and had tailed off her initial speech on seeing the evening paper in Christine's hands. "How many times have I told you not to leave the theatre unsupervised?"

"I…" Meg began. Her mother's anger was the only thing that could render the usually loquacious girl speechless.

"It's all right, Mame, I brought the young ladies the paper." Bouquet passed by the open dressing room door on his way to the fly floor and winked at Meg over the top of Madame Giry's head. The tiny ballerina and the huge stagehand made for a comical pair of partners in crime, but they were often found teaming up against Meg's mother when her overprotectiveness became too much for the girl. "I thought they might want to keep up with the latest… developments."

Madame spun on her heel and put her hands on her hips with the air of contained exasperation of one who wished to chastise thoroughly and had been cheated of the opportunity.

"You shouldn't go putting ideas into their heads, Joseph," she said, irritably. "You know how impressionable they are. Women dying of fright indeed."

Bouquet shrugged apologetically.

"It's bad business, Madame, bad business. Someone's got to catch it soon or there'll be riots, you mark my words. Heads will roll."

"Really, Joseph, you are insufferable. Shouldn't you be at your post?"

Bouquet nodded deferentially and moved along down the corridor before Madame could become any more vehement and he outstayed his limited welcome. She threw her hands up in despair before returning her attention to the two girls in whose dressing room she stood. The flyman's interruption had caused her to lose her thread and she wrung her hands for a moment as she tried to remember what it was that she had come in to tell them, before giving it up as a bad job and making to leave the room.

"Twenty minutes to curtain-up, girls," she said. "And Meg…"

"Yes, _Maman_?"

"If I even suspect that you've been sneaking out…"

Madame Giry left the room, the untold threat hanging ominously in the doorway. Meg rolled her eyes and continued to do her make-up, concentrating in silence for a moment before speaking to Christine once more.

"Do you really think that there's something out there?" she asked. "I mean, we can say it's not real, and we can have a bit of a laugh about it, but then again, we're shut up in here in the opera house, nice and safe. We're not out there with it."

"I don't know," said Christine honestly. "I just don't know what to believe."

"Well, at any rate, I don't think we'll have any problems here." The confidence in Meg's voice was betraying the slightest hint of unease. Christine would not have picked up on it had she not known her friend so well. "La Carlotta's singing would scare off any half-sentient being within a four mile radius. I'm going to stuff my ears with cotton during the cadenza tonight; I swear that they were bleeding yesterday."

Christine laughed and shook her head, taking the lipstick that Meg held out to her. Monsters or no monsters, people still came to the opera, albeit in slightly reduced numbers than was usual for that time of the year, and people still expected them to perform despite the fear that was rife in the streets outside. "You will still perform," Madame Giry had told the chorus girls and the dancers when the monster stories had first begun to break. "Even if there is just one person in the audience, you will still perform for them. If they are not scared of shadows, then neither should you be." The show must always go on, thought Christine, although La Carlotta had been threatening to walk out on them for the past few days. Presently they heard her voice carrying through the upper parts of the theatre; she had evidently seen the evening news as well. How could she be expected to concentrate on her art with this unspeakable hysteria in the city? It was terrible for her nerves, her voice would suffer…

"We'll suffer under her voice, more like," muttered Meg darkly. "Oh, Christine, you could sing Margareta better than her any day. One of these days we're going to have to concoct a way to get Firmin and André to hear you, and they'll sack Carlotta and promote you on the spot. You're made of finer stuff, Christine. Everyone knows that."

Christine shrugged.

"Perhaps once the furore has died down," she said.

"Perhaps," Meg agreed. She seemed to know not to push the subject any further, and she returned to the more pressing task of make-up and the more mundane topics of theatre gossip, of which there seemed to be no end. Did Christine know that everyone was saying that Hélène Dubois was in the family way, and it was the second clarinet who'd got her that way?

"Meg, if everyone's saying it, why would it cross your mind that I didn't know?"

"Well, sometimes you wander around the place with your head in the clouds," said Meg matter-of-factly. "I think it's perfectly reasonable that what's common knowledge to the rest of us comes as a complete shock to you."

"Common knowledge or conjecture?" asked Christine.

"Common knowledge," affirmed Christine. "Joseph caught them together on the fly floor last month. That's proof enough for me. What will _Maman_ say when she finds out, do you think?"

"Meg, I don't know, and I'm not sure that I care, either."

"But…"

At that point the five minute warning bell sounded throughout the theatre and the girls were swept up into the final preparations that the performance required, the other dancers moving in and out of each others' dressing rooms for last minute hair-pins and solutions to wardrobe emergencies. Hélène was heard complaining that one of her seams had split and Meg gave Christine a knowing look.

"Honestly, a girl gains a little weight and everyone automatically assumes that she's in trouble."

"Christine Daaé, there are times when you are too innocent for your own good." Meg stood and went to the door, ready to leave for the wings and their imminent entrance onto the stage. "Are you coming or not?"

"Give me a moment; I'll be there."

Meg nodded and left their dressing room. Christine put the final adjustments to her hair arrangement and leaned on the windowsill, pushing the sash upwards to allow a little cool air into the room, which was rapidly becoming stuffy. Gazing out into the darkness of the alley that their dressing room looked out onto, she thought of the evening's headlines and gave a shiver unrelated to the cold breeze. Something out there on the streets of Paris, something unfriendly roaming around… Even the thought of it was enough to make her want to bar the doors and close the curtains, despite Meg's determination to disbelieve.

Something caught the corner of her eye and she started, before peering out the window to try and establish the cause. There was no sign of anything. Perhaps a cat, they moved swiftly and silently, a black cat melting into the darkness. She scolded herself for her folly and cast an annoyed glance back at the paper that was lying blamelessly on the dressing table where she had left it. All this talk of monsters was making her jump at shadows. All the same… She closed the window and locked it, pulling the curtains closed tightly to shut out the sight and the sickening temptation to look again. Christine made her way out of the dressing room with a sense of unease. Had there been something there, or had she just imagined it?

"Are you all right?" asked Meg as she took up her position beside her in the wings. Her face was concerned. "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"I'm fine," Christine replied shortly, but she could not shake the memory from her head. As she moved her way through the performance, her dancing static and distracted, her imagination was taking her mind far away from the present, grotesque forms and phantoms springing up in her head and haunting the alley outside her dressing room; sometimes huge, sometimes bent, sometimes distorted and snarling, but all with the same constant feature, a feature that she was sure she had seen in the darkness. All with the same burning yellow eyes…

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><p><strong>Note2:<strong> Well, I hope you enjoyed the beginning of a rather alternate Phantom! I'll update when I can but I have learned from experience never to promise when new chapters will come.


	2. Chapter 2

**A Phantom in Paris**

**Two**

The performance over, Christine was once more alone in her and Meg's dressing room, her companion having disappeared on yet another covert mission, the nature of which Christine did not fully understand. As the evening had progressed, so Christine had relaxed, finding herself increasingly able to convince herself that she had simply been labouring under the rigours of her overactive imagination before. It was just a cat that she had seen in the alleyway, she told herself firmly, the yellow eyes of a cat as it disappeared into the shadows of the night. All the same, enough of her previous unease remained for her to keep the curtains firmly closed, and she could not help a shiver of fear that ran over her spine every time her gaze happened to wander in the direction of the innocent drapes. Presently she turned her eyes towards the door, wondering where Meg had got to and whether her friend was likely to return soon, or whether she could get in a few minutes of uninterrupted practice. It was not that Christine minded having an audience when she sang, far from it, but she required concentration, and Meg did have a tendency to enter a room mid-sentence and not realise that Christine was focused on something else until it was too late. After staring at the door pointedly for a few moments and receiving no sign of Meg's imminent reappearance, Christine concentrated her attentions on the mirror and started on her scales to warm up, as she had heard Carlotta do so many times before – the diva had a habit of prolonging the dominant note to such an extent that it was made impossible for the rest of the theatre not to know that she was singing her scales. Feeling her vocal cords sufficiently limber, and still expecting an interruption from Meg at any moment, Christine began to sing the melodies of Faust that she knew so well, the music that she had absorbed whilst waiting in the wings, ignoring Meg's snide comments about wolves howling at the moon, as she gazed with longing onto the stage and wished that it was she who was singing in the spotlight. It was in these moments, alone in their little room, when she was lost in the music that existed only in her ears, and when she could hear the small increments of progression in the strength of her voice, that Christine entertained the most hope. Maybe this time... The sentiment echoed through her mind. It was all too easy to lose optimism in the drudgery of everyday life, but when the music swelled, then, anything was possible.

She reached the end of Margareta's first solo and looked around the room to find herself still alone. Whatever the object of Meg's latest escapade, it was obviously proving far more difficult to execute than nipping out to get the newspaper. Christine looked down at the offending article that had caused them so much discussion and felt the same shiver of fear come over her unbidden once more. She turned the page over with a modicum of annoyance and began to sing again, this time a duet, the tune sounding slightly lopsided in the absence of a harmonising tenor to her soprano. By the time that she had reached the end of the first verse, however, Christine felt that there was nothing lacking; that there was another voice soaring and entwining with her own, pushing her on to higher notes and more challenging passages than she had ever attempted before…

Christine stopped abruptly mid-note and watched her face drain of colour in the mirror as the realisation dawned on her and the phantom Faust continued to sing in the absence of his Margareta. The glass gave her a full view of the room and it was obvious that she was alone, which did not serve to ease her anxiety in the slightest.

"Hello?" she squeaked, unable and unwilling to turn round and perhaps find herself face to face with a spectre with no reflection. They often said that the opera house was haunted by the spirit of a young tenor strangled by a love rival, doomed to wander the halls and be blamed for the regular loss of small trinkets by the _corps de ballet_. Christine had heard so many versions of this tale since her arrival in Paris, most of them ludicrously unbelievable, that she was loath to set any store by them, but after a night of so many unusual occurrences, she was not quite so sure. Grasping her chair tightly, she turned minutely to peer over her shoulder. Nothing. The room was empty and yet still Faust's rich, mellifluous voice did not cease. Reluctantly, Christine found her attention drawn to the window once more, finding herself both relieved and disquieted by the reaction in equal measure.

On the one hand, she was now becoming aware by degrees that the voice was coming from outside, and she felt immensurate gratitude that it could not be traced to some sort of vocally well-endowed ghost that had taken up residence in her dressing room. On the other, that window had caused her enough troubling thoughts that evening already. Releasing the iron grip in which she had previously held her seat, Christine nervously drummed her fingers along the edge of the dressing table, a habit that Meg despised with fervour, and she wondered what to do. Her safest bet was obviously to ignore it, to pretend that she had never heard it and go about her life as if nothing had happened to disturb her. Yet somehow, Christine knew that this wasn't a viable option. The voice had entranced her, touched a chord somewhere in her mind or memory with its melancholy beauty, and it took her a while to work out why. Once realisation had come in a flood of understanding, she stood suddenly and made her way over to the window, no longer afraid and indeed wondering why she had been afraid in the first place. The voice had finished its half of the Faustian duet and had moved on across the years and across the operas, singing now in a foreign tongue that Christine recognised to be one of Mozart's masterpieces. With every note, every nuance, this unknown voice sounded more and more like her father. Christine remembered the times when he would lay aside his violin and sing in the same tone, a tone that was haunted by the hardships of a life that clung to his every step and that he could not forget, even in his music.

She went to open the curtains but stopped, arrested by a sudden nervousness. Her father had promised her an angel of music and she had been waiting for this mysterious benefactor for most of her young life. Was this it? The moment that she had been anticipating for so long? Had her angel finally arrived?

Taking her courage in hand she threw open the curtains with a sudden movement to startle anything sinister hiding on the other side of them, and she peered out into the dark alley, cupping her hands around her face to block out the obscuring light from the dressing room. She could not see anything outside, and the singing reached its coda and faded. Christine strained to hear the dying notes, unwilling to let go of the feeble hope that they had ignited within her, desperate to prolong the link with her long-since-lost father. She pushed up the sash and leaned out into the drizzly night, the misty rain clinging to her face and hair.

"Hello?" she called. "Is there someone there?"

She squinted into the shadows, and the memories of what she thought she had seen earlier in the evening came upon her unbidden. Just as she was thinking the better of her momentary folly and making to duck back inside, something caught her eye in the dark beneath the window. A figure swathed in a huge black coat, face obscured by a hat, was huddled outside.

"Hello," she called softly to it. "Hello out there."

The figure didn't move, in fact it seemed to shrink further back into itself instead of responding actively to her voice. Christine came back inside and closed the window and the curtains, leaning on the sill for a moment whilst she considered her next move. Obviously, the current climate in Paris did not lend itself to midnight excursions in dark alleys. Then again… Christine felt compelled to discover the identity behind the voice. She made her decision suddenly, saving herself any more agonising deliberation. Once Christine's mind was made up, it was nigh on impossible for anyone to sway her from it. She turned on her heel and stalked across the room, plucking her outdoor cloak from where it hung innocently on the back of the door and putting it on before opening the door a fraction and peeping out into the corridor to check that there was no-one about who would report her clandestine activity to Madame Giry. The rest of the theatre seemed to be deserted; most of the performers and crew had gone home. Christine slipped out of the dressing room and tiptoed down the corridor, expecting to be waylaid or called back with every step. When she made it to the stage door unimpeded, she counted it as a small victory and made her way out into the murky night, past the last few audiences members still lingering outside the theatre, and into the alley that her dressing room looked out onto.

"Hello?" she called down into the darkness. "Are you alright down there?"

There was no response, but Christine thought that she could see movement in the dim light still burning in her room. Letting her eyes become accustomed to the gloom, she saw the ragged figure that had sung beneath her window stand, or at least attempt to, before he staggered and sat back down heavily. A tramp or beggar of some kind, evidently homeless. But to possess such a voice… Christine advanced a few steps. He was bent over double, face still hidden by the wide brimmed hat, and he seemed to be in pain.

"Are you hurt?" Christine called. "We may be able to help you, at the stage door."

The mysterious figure spoke for the first time, but he did not answer her question.

"You have a beautiful voice, mademoiselle. Unique." His own voice was definitely the same that she had heard singing, but his breathing pattern was uneven and hitching in his pain. "With the right tuition you would soar."

"You know music, monsieur?"

"I live for it."

Christine had reached him by this point, and crouched on the ground beside him.

"Are you hurt, monsieur?" she repeated. For a long time he gave no response, but eventually he nodded. "What's happened?" she asked.

"Better for you not to know," came the cryptic reply. As he shifted slightly, however, Christine could see ragged lines torn in the side of his coat and shirt, and harsh red lines criss-crossing the skin beneath, the mark of a coachman's whip. The man remained with his head bowed, still half-shrunken in to himself. It was as if he, like she, was torn between remaining ignorant and investigating the voice that had awoken such fascination. He was certainly determined to keep his identity firmly under wraps, and Christine felt a spark of frustration.

"You too have a beautiful voice, monsieur," she said. "May I see the face that goes with it?"

"That would not be wise," said the man. "The face does not match the voice."

But Christine had already turned up the brim of his hat to stare down into the blazing eyes of what could only be the monster of Paris. She felt her throat constrict around a scream, no noise coming out despite how much she wanted to shriek, and her knees gave way. This was where her curiosity had led her, she thought in desperation as she lost consciousness. Dead in an alley at the hands of what she had so foolishly believed to be her angel of music…

As she came round, so rational thought returned. Christine opened her eyes and stared into those that had caused her to faint in the first place, and she realised that he was holding her. Her first instinct was to fight, but the look in his deformed, inhuman face was so concerned that her fears began to subside. He had merely caught her to prevent her falling to the ground, and he did not resist as she sat up and disentangled herself from his grasp. His appearance was horrific, certainly, but her train of thought from earlier in the evening returned to her briefly. There was no evidence of a Ripper-esque trail of destruction in his wake.

"Thank you," she said, getting to her feet once more. She looked up at her window, the curtains still closed, and down the alley to the street. There were less people around now; the crowds had broken up and only the occasional passer-by could be seen, walking with coat collars turned up against the misty rain and cloak hoods pulled in tight over elegant coiffeurs. Christine felt a pang of sympathy for the poor creature that sat curled up at her feet, his voice so wonderful and his face so despised, in pain and shunned. She had discovered a bond with him, a diamond beneath the exterior that shone when he sang. She understood such hidden gifts; could she really turn her back on a fellow after her own heart? She shook her head.

_Angels come in all forms and faces_, her father's voice echoed in her ears.

Christine held out her hand and the man took it gingerly, using her weight as counterbalance as he inched up the wall to his feet.

"Come inside," she said. "Let's see if we can't patch you up. Do you have a name?" she asked as she led him down the alley and checked that the coast was clear before continuing to the stage door and the warmth of the theatre.

"Erik," the man replied. "My name is Erik." His voice sounded faintly surprised when he spoke, as if it was so long since he had last used the name that he was astonished that it still worked on his tongue, like a long-forgotten coat that still fits after however many years.

"I'm Christine. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"And I yours,"

They reached the dressing room; Christine had left the door slightly ajar, and she looked inside, ready to warn Meg if she had returned and avoid her friend reacting in the same way that she had, but the room was empty. She opened the door fully to allow Erik inside, and he sat down gratefully on her chair at the dressing table, instinctively avoiding the mirror.

"You are a singer here, Mademoiselle Christine? The prima donna in training for the next season?" he asked as Christine busied herself with the cuts on his side. She looked up at him momentarily and shook her head. His face looked far less ghastly in the warm light of the room and she was beginning to be able to find the imprint of humanity in it.

"No, I'm just a dancer. _Corps de ballet_. My father taught me to sing, but that was a long time ago."

"Then your talent is all the more remarkable for its being unnurtured."

Christine shrugged her shoulders and continued to work. Meg kept ointment and bandages somewhere, they were essential items for any dancer to have in her possession, but Christine had no idea where they were at any given point in time as every time they were used, they seemed to be put back in a completely random place unrelated to the one they had been taken from. Eventually she tracked them down and dabbed the stinging solution onto Erik's wounds. He drew in breath sharply and Christine began to speak again in a feeble attempt to distract him from her ministrations.

"And what about your voice?" she asked. "Where did you learn your art?"

On the road, he said, at the doors of opera houses throughout the country where he had toured with his fellow oddities until he had come to Paris and knew that it was the goal that he had been looking for throughout the long years, and he had escaped.

"The circuses I have known have not been happy places," he said succinctly, "but they all share a love of music. A balm for the souls of the bruised and battered."

Christine sensed that this was a topic that it would be unwise to pursue. She could not begin to imagine what Erik had been through in his life, outcast for a deformity over which he had no control. They lapsed into silence for a while.

"Your kindness is uncommon, Mademoiselle Christine."

"I…" But before Christine could reply, the dressing room door burst open with such force that it bounced off the wall.

"Christine, you'll never believe it, they're having a party for the new patron upstairs and I managed to get us some champ…"

The last word became a high-pitched scream and the champagne glasses in question smashed on the floor, the liquid effervescing as it soaked into Meg's shoes. Christine crossed the room swiftly and clamped her hand over her friend's mouth until she quieted.

"The monster!" Meg whispered as Christine removed her gag, pointing beyond her shoulder at the man in the room.

"His name is Erik, and he is not a monster," said Christine firmly. She closed the door and levered the shocked Meg onto her stool in front of the mirror.

"But how..?" the little blonde began, before letting words fail her completely.

"I found him outside. He needs help, Meg, not horror." She returned to Erik and finished tying off the bandage, tucking the end in neatly and standing back to admire her handiwork. She glanced back at Meg, who was staring at the scene in the mirror. She had gone very pale.

"I think I'm going to be sick," she said, and ran from the room.

Christine looked at Erik, mortified, but he merely shrugged.

"I have seen far worse reactions," he said simply. He tucked his shirt in over the bandage and stood slowly, pulling the brim of his hat even lower. "Thank you so much for your hospitality, Mademoiselle Christine."

"Wait," said Christine, catching his arm as he moved past her towards the door. "Where will you go?"

Erik paused, they both knew that he had nowhere. Christine took a deep breath in order to give voice to a thought that had been lying dormant in her mind ever since she had first opened the window to find him, the owner of that mysterious voice that had mesmerised her so.

"I'd like… Please will you help me to sing?" she asked, before adding, somewhat guiltily, "I have reason to believe that our paths did not cross by chance."

She could not see his face beneath his hat but Christine could tell from his stance that he was deep in thought.

"Your voice is truly unique, my dear," he said. "The most exquisite I have heard."

There was silence for a moment before he began to sing once more, the same Faust duet that she had practiced earlier. Christine joined him, his voice lifting her own and pushing it to greater height and greater power, higher than she had ever dared go before.

"The theatre vaults are near enough deserted, just scenery from past seasons."

Christine whirled round to find that Meg had returned, uncharacteristically silently, and was crouching in the doorframe, clearing up the broken glass and champagne. She seemed to have regained most of her colour.

"Bouquet gave me a key in case I ever needed to, erm, evade _Maman_ for a while. You would be quite safe there."

"Meg?" began Christine in disbelief.

Meg smiled weakly.

"That was perfect, Christine. Beyond perfect. You could trounce Carlotta like that." She snapped her fingers. "And it seemed so effortless. He's a far better teacher than the vocal master here could ever be."

Erik shifted at the compliment.

"Meg! Christine!"

Madame's Giry's voice, a little slurred, rang out down the corridor, and the owners of the dressing room froze, their eyes flickering to Erik.

"Hide!" hissed Meg.

Erik looked around the room and got behind the thick curtains just as the door opened. Christine hastily moved in front of the window to mask his ankles where the drapes did not quite meet the floor.

"I thought I heard a man in here…" Madame Giry's eyes narrowed on finding the two girls seemingly alone in the room. "I could have sworn I heard a tenor…"

She backed out of the room with a slight sway in her gait. As soon as she was gone, Meg burst out laughing.

"Dear me, I think Firmin's been plying _Maman_ with a little too much liquor at the party upstairs," she said. "She didn't even notice the spilt champagne!" She returned to the earnest matter in hand. "I think, though… It would be hard for you to remain in the theatre unnoticed, not with your… No offence, monsieur."

"None taken."

Christine thought for a moment, and then a smile spread across her face as the answer came to her.

"I know what you need."

She left the room and crept furtively along the corridor and down the stairs to the wardrobe store. Battling her way through the long gowns and stiff doublets, she found what she was looking for – masks. Masks of every shape and description, in cloth, papier maché, resin, porcelain… She grabbed a handful that she thought might fit Erik and darted back to the dressing room, aware that she had left him and Meg alone together and slightly uneasy at the prospect. She paused outside the door.

"… Christine loves singing; it's her life," Meg was saying. "If you can help her, then, well, we can help you."

Christine smiled and entered the room. Meg had finished clearing up and was sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest, not completely at ease but the least nervous that she had been since returning to the dressing room to be met with the sight of Erik. She grinned when she saw the masks in Christine's arms.

"Oh, Christine, fantastic!"

Erik, who had been keeping a respectful distance from the tiny dancer, came forward and looked through the masks, selecting one and turning away from the girls to put it on. Once it was secured in place, he ventured their approval. Christine and Meg nodded. The face was still unnatural, but it would not engender a hue and cry should someone come across him in the depths of the theatre.

The three co-conspirators looked at each other, plunged into a little deception that only they were party to. What had happened in this meagre little dressing room this evening, Christine thought, would have a profound effect on them for a long time to come.


	3. Chapter 3

**A Phantom in Paris**

**Three**

"Come on!" Meg called to her friend, halfway up the vault steps ahead of her, gesticulating wildly for Christine to get a move on and follow her. "It's all kicking off and you'll miss your moment! Even _Maman_ said you should come!"

"It must be serious then," said Christine drily, catching up to the little blonde, and together their made their way up to the main auditorium from the theatre's depths. As they neared the stage, so Christine could hear the commotion that she had been called to witness.

It had been a little over a fortnight since she and Meg had smuggled Erik into the opera house, and they had settled into quite a comfortable routine. Erik had proved himself quite adept at keeping out of sight of the theatre's other occupants and had taken great delight in exploring the building from top to bottom with no-one noticing his presence. Although he mainly retreated to the vaults when the house was nearing its full capacity, Christine had more than once looked up into the darkness of the traditionally empty box five during a performance (legend had it that this was where the grizzly murder had taken place) to find his bright eyes watching the show in seclusion. As often as she could manage, Christine would go to him in the vaults and, with a backdrop of half-mouldering set pieces from seasons gone by, he would nurture her voice in a way that it had never been encouraged before. He was a demanding teacher, expecting her full attention and dedication, but he was patient, letting her make her mistakes and develop at her own pace. His praise was sincere and heartfelt when it came, and it was what Christine kept pushing for.

Already she felt as if she was making more progress in a few days than she had done in the entire rest of her singing career. When she practised in their dressing room after a performance, Meg commented on her marked improvement. It was obvious, she had said, that Christine had found another kindred spirit for whom music was the very epicentre of their being, as essential to their survival as their heart and soul. Meg, whilst Christine was honing her vocal skills with Erik below ground where they could not be overheard, had been having great fun breathing new life into old stories, propagating the rumours of the opera ghost among the _corps de ballet_ until she had built up an entire myth surrounding Erik and his shadowy presence.

"Just in case," she had said to Christine. "If anyone does come across him he can be dismissed as evidence of the supernatural and forgotten about." It was a slightly defective logic but, coupled with Erik's uncanny natural ability for concealment, making him into the famous opera ghost was not such a bad idea when it came to keeping his presence in the theatre relatively undisturbed. There were even murmurs about this mysterious phantom among the most hardened stage hands, including Bouquet, who continued to unashamedly conspire with Meg to usurp her mother's over-protectiveness.

Outside on the streets of Paris, the rumours still lay heavy in the air. People were wondering where the monster would appear again with supposed sightings as far away as Dijon. Each time they saw a new headline, both Christine and Meg had to burst out laughing. Occasionally Christine wondered if there was a second monster out there other than Erik, but she was not convinced of this flimsy theory. No, the 'monster' was safely hidden in the opera house, but Christine was beginning to get uneasy. The newspapers were still baying for blood, and it would only be a matter of time…

"Come on!"

Christine pulled herself out of her recollections and into the present to find that she had once again fallen behind Meg. She put on a burst of speed and they made it onto the stage in time to bear witness to the denouement of what had evidently been a spectacularly operatic crisis. At once, Christine saw why Meg had been so anxious for her to attend; she had said that this would be her big chance.

Carlotta was standing on the stage, holding aloft a newspaper with an air of triumph. Christine's heart leapt to her mouth when she read the headline that the diva was brandishing.

MONSTER SIGHTED NEAR OPERA HOUSE

"Signora, please." André had his hands together in a pleading position; Christine wouldn't have been at all surprised if he ended up on his knees before he was through.

"My mind is made up!" Carlotta screeched, as imperiously as someone with her vocal cords could. "I cannot continue to work in this environment! All this talk of phantoms in the theatre, ghosts of murders, and now this!" She shook the paper in André's face, forcing him to take a step back. Firmin, who was sitting in the auditorium watching the whole charade with amusement, gave a snort of laughter and took a surreptitious swig from the hipflask secreted inside his jacket. Carlotta turned on him.

"And you, Signor Firmin! What will you do when you have to explain to your precious patron that this performance is cancelled?"

Firmin choked on his tipple; apparently he hadn't realised that the lack of a starring soprano meant the lack of an opera altogether. André looked pained as Firmin recovered himself quickly and jumped up from his seat, marching up towards the stage.

"I can assure you, signora," he began, "that this theatre will not crumble without you, and you will not find us begging for you to remain."

"Firmin…" André tried to interrupt.

"André, you are making a fool of yourself," Firmin snapped. Carlotta gave a very high note of indignation and stormed off the stage to return a few moments later, holding the paper like a club.

"You will regret this, signore!" she hissed.

There was a moment of silence on the stage before whispers broke out amongst the ballerinas and the chorus. André turned to Firmin, who was still staring after Carlotta's long-vanished back with his hands on his hips, looking remarkably satisfied. Although it was no secret that there was no love lost between the diva and the manager, no-one had expected things to come to a head so dramatically. No-one, it seemed, except Meg, who was now alternating between prodding her friend in the ribs and treading on her toes.

"Well, I hope you're pleased with yourself, Richard," said André coolly. "I shall leave it to you to explain to our audience why there is to be no performance tonight, since you have insulted our star into leaving us for the foreseeable future. If you had given me a moment I would have won her back."

"André, she merely wanted to see you beg. The woman is a demon. I have said so for some time."

André flung his hands up in a gesture of exasperated defeat. Meg, rolling her eyes at Christine's obtuseness in not taking any initiative upon her hints, grabbed her wrist and dragged her forward out of the lines of dancers, up towards the managers.

"Christine could sing it, messieurs," she said eagerly.

André looked the girls up and down and quirked one eyebrow.

"A member of the _corps de ballet_ whose dancing is average at best?"

"Her voice is better than her feet," said Meg defiantly, refusing to be cowed by the older man's incredulous gaze.

"Mademoiselle Giry, I hardly think that a girl of seventeen has the experience and vocal maturity required of the role of Margareta, especially when she has never sung in an opera before!"

"I don't know." Firmin looked Christine up and down and turned his head on one side. Perhaps he was still on a high having got rid of Carlotta, or perhaps he was just in one of those moods where he felt like contradicting everything that his business partner said. "Margareta is, after all, a slip of a girl seduced by a much older man. Let us hear your voice then, my dear, and we will make a judgement then."

"Firmin…"

"It can't hurt us to listen to the girl, André. Besides," Firmin continued under his breath, "if she proves incapable then it will serve as a lesson to her for trumpeting her talents."

Christine felt this slightly unfair since it had been Meg who had been doing all the trumpeting, but at the same time, she could not prevent her pulse raising at the thought that this might be the breakthrough that she had awaited for so long. Her Angel of Music had appeared to her, and with him, the opportunities had arrived. But she was nervous as well. What if she couldn't do it, if her voice failed her at the last moment, and she was left to be forever more the dancer who thought she could move up in the world? She would let Erik down, her father down, herself down…

"Very well," said André. "Maestro!"

The pianist, who had been reading the same morning edition that Carlotta had thrust into the manager's face, hastily flung down the paper and swung his legs off the top of the piano, playing a scale to warm up and try, unsuccessfully, to convince the rest of the ensemble that he had been paying attention to everything that had been going on. He played the first few introductory bars of Margareta's famous aria; Christine cleared her throat, opened her mouth to sing, and no sound came out. Her nervousness had pulled up short inside her, constricting around the notes and rendering her mute. The pianist took a few moments to realise that she was not accompanying him and he tailed off. André shook his head with a satisfied little sneer, and Firmin looked dejectedly at the stage. Christine knew that her chance was slipping through her fingers and she grabbed it, metaphorically, with both hands.

"Wait," she called to the pianist. "I wasn't ready."

There was a moment of silence as Christine gathered her composure.

"Are you ready now, mademoiselle?" asked André, sounding very plainly bored. She nodded and the pianist began the introduction again. Christine closed her eyes, imagining that Erik was hiding just out of sight, willing her on from the darkness. She imagined her father, watching over her from above, and she began to sing.

Once the first stanza of the aria was over, Christine dared to open her eyes, staring straight out into the auditorium since she was still too nervous to look at her observers. For a brief moment, the seats were filled with an awed audience, but they soon faded into emptiness.

The aria ended. Christine could have heard a pin drop in the theatre before the ballet girls behind her broke out into vociferous applause. She heard a whistle and turned to see Firmin positively beaming at her, applauding with the rest. André's mouth was hanging open and he was doing a very good impression of a surprised codfish.

"I think you'll agree, André, that La Carlotta's absence will not cause any undue problems."

André finally closed his mouth and nodded. Meg ran over and threw her arms around her friend.

"You floored them!" she said. "Did you see André's expression? Oh, he'll forget all about Carlotta but the time you're finished tonight!"

Christine was still taking it all in. Five minutes ago, she had merely been a nondescript dancer in the background, nobody important in the grander scheme of things. Now, she was the leading lady. She did not have time to ponder for long, however; all too soon she was swept up into the bustle of the full rehearsal, being accosted by the wardrobe mistress from time to time, who seemed incredibly peeved at having to alter Carlotta's costumes at the last moment and was determined to stick pins in Christine at every available opportunity. As the dancers came on to practise, she sat down at the side of the stage, grateful for a rest at long last. She heard a rustle behind her.

"_Bravissimo, ma petite allouette_."

She smiled, turning to speak to Erik, who had evidently come up from the vaults to see what all the rumpus that had caused the morning's lesson to be cut short was about and stowed away in the shadows, but before she could do so, André appeared at her side.

"Where have you been hiding your talents?" he asked her. "You've been keeping quiet in the ballet, not even a part of the chorus, and you have such a voice! We didn't even realise you had a tongue in your head."

Christine made no comment, thinking it wise not to mention to André that it had been he and Monsieur Gilliéron, the vocal master, who had always impeded her progress, citing too many other pressing engagements to give her an audition. She watched André out of the corner of her eye; there was something in his manner that she did not fully trust. She was going to have to keep an eye on him, but there were more pressing matters to attend to first. She had to get through the evening's performance for a start, and warn Erik that he might have been spotted and recognised. She replied to the manager's questioning with a suitably vague comment about her father teaching her to sing, and she was quite glad when she was called back onto the stage. She cast a glance over her shoulder and saw André's calculating look. No, she did not trust him an inch…

X

"Isn't this exciting?" Meg was standing in the middle of Christine's new dressing room, staring in wonder at the furniture therein. It was not particularly different to the one that they had used to share and that, in the wake of Christine's sudden promotion, now belonged to Meg alone, but it was still a novelty. Christine had felt quite bereft when Madame Giry had collected her from the cosy little room that she practically lived in and borne her upstairs to th dressing rooms of the prima donnas but it had not taken Meg long to get herself ready in record time and come to find her friend.

"The patron's out there," Meg continued, pointing at the dressing room door to signal 'the rest of the theatre'. "He's _very_ handsome, and you'll be singing for him."

Meg fell silent in contemplation of the absent patron. Christine raised an eyebrow in the mirror and Meg came back to herself with an awkward cough.

"Erm, yes, well, handsome as he is, he's probably the idiot of Paris… Oh, Christine, it's all going swimmingly."

There was a knock at the door and Madame Giry entered.

"Meg, leave Christine alone. She needs to prepare herself for her grand début."

"No, no, it's alright, I like having Meg here." Christine scrambled up but Meg was already skipping out of the door, still grinning from ear to ear. Christine felt horribly alone as Madame Giry came towards her, holding out a folded letter.

"It appears you have a note wishing you well, mademoiselle, and I too would like to extend my congratulations and good luck for this evening," she said, giving her a rare smile of almost maternal pride and leaving the room softly. Christine unfolded the note.

_Remember_, Erik had written in his spidery hand. _Confidence and control. You can sing perfectly if you believe in yourself. I have every faith in you, and I will be there to watch you triumph. E._

Christine tucked the note into the frame of her mirror. She certainly owed some, if not most of her success to Erik and all that he had taught her in their past two weeks of tuition. At the same time, she was still uneasy that she had not been able to see him and warn him since reading the fateful headline. She remembered André's expression as he had sat alone in the wings, Erik unseen just a few feet away from him.

For a moment, there was nothing Christine wanted more than to be back amongst the anonymity of the ballerinas; the magnitude of what was happening to her, and so quickly, was frightening to comprehend. But the moment soon passed, and she pulled herself together. This was her hour, and she had to make the most of it before Carlotta returned and André would undoubtedly drop her like a hot iron in favour of his darling diva, sending her back to obscurity forever more. This was what she had waited for and she could not afford to waste it.

There was a tap on her door.

"Mademoiselle Daaé."

She opened the door and had to take a step back on finding herself face to face with Mephistopheles. The baritone bowed.

"Monsieur Pinceau."

"Don't tell Piangi," Pinceau muttered, "but the rest of us are not in the least sorry to see a change in the cast, if my meaning is clear."

Christine smiled. Aside from the star tenor, who was devoted to his leading lady, the other singers had made no attempt to hide their strained relationship with the prima donna whose place she had taken.

"Monsieur Pinceau, five minutes!" someone called from the other end of the corridor.

"I'm on my way." He smiled to Christine. "The stage beckons. I shall see you on it very soon. Good luck, my dear."

Christine watched him go and closed the door, leaning against it. Her moment was almost upon her, and despite her apprehension, she was looking forward to it. It was what she had lived for. Pinceau would be there on the stage with her, Meg would be there in the wings, and Erik would be there in the auditorium giving her support from somewhere out there.

"Mademoiselle Daaé, five minutes."

Christine left her dressing room. It was time.

* * *

><p><strong>Note:<strong> Anyone who knows who the actual M. Gilliéron was wins a cookie. I'll give you a clue – it's absolutely nothing to do with opera. I just love the name and wanted to get it in there. The French speakers among you may have noticed that M. Pinceau's name translates as 'paintbrush'. Don't worry, this is intentional. There's a very long and convoluted story behind it...


	4. Chapter 4

**A Phantom in Paris**

**Four**

It was nothing short of glorious, and as Christine stepped to centre stage to sing the final cadenza of her final scene, she wondered how she had ever been nervous before. As soon as she had made her first entrance and looked into the depths of the auditorium, at faces she couldn't see but knew to be there, her fears had melted away. This was what she had been born to do. After her first duet with Piangi, the song that had first brought her and Erik together in the drizzle outside her dressing room, she had cast a quick glance up at the supposedly empty box and was just able to make out his outline, the stage lights reflecting dimly off the contours of his mask. She thought of him now as she reached her final note, taking a deep breath and putting the full, unfettered power of her voice behind it. He had got her here, to this wonderful moment, and as the applause grew deafening, she sent up a thought of gratitude to him. Although she could no longer make him out in the shadows with the changed lighting, she knew he was there, silently encouraging her, as she basked in the glow of the performance. Nothing could mar the exhilaration flowing through her veins, not even the fact that, when Margareta fell into her beloved's arms in a faint after her final note of defiance against the Devil, Faust conveniently forgot to catch her.

The curtain dropped and Pinceau handed her off the floor, giving Piangi a dirty look as the tenor passed them, but Christine couldn't care less. In her eyes, all was perfect, and as the final curtain dropped between her and her standing ovation, the adrenaline continued to rush. As the hubbub of excitement broke out in the auditorium, it was matched by a similar commotion on the stage.

"So young, and such a voice!" Christine heard someone murmur behind her as she stayed staring at the back of the curtains. Piangi swept past her without a second glance, and Christine was certain that he was on his way to find Carlotta and tell her everything that had happened during tonight's performance in minute detail. Still she didn't move, drinking in as much of the atmosphere as she could before it was time to leave the stage for her dressing room and the feeling would ebb away. A tap on her shoulder finally made her turn.

"A most triumphant début," said Pinceau, his make-up beginning to run in greasy rivulets under the hot lights, and an infectious grin on his face. He kissed her hand with a bow. "Well done, Mademoiselle Daaé. You should be very proud, as should your tutor." He left her and Christine saw Meg standing off to one side, her arms folded and one eyebrow raised. Christine rolled her eyes as she joined her friend in the wings.

"Meg…"

"Well, you certainly impressed Monsieur Pinceau."

"Meg, don't you dare start matchmaking, he's a married man."

"_Moi_? Would I do a thing like that?" The tiny dancer threw her arms around her friend with a squeal of glee, dancing a little jig on the spot in her pointe shoes. "Oh, Christine, you were fantastic! No-one will want Carlotta back after that."

"Apart from Piangi," said Christine drily.

"Oh, stuff Piangi," Meg replied airily. "You were so good! Do you think Erik saw? He'll be so proud of you."

"He saw," said Christine, remembering his silhouette in the otherwise empty box. "I was watching out for him."

"Well, I was watching out for someone else," said Meg conspiratorially, leading Christine further into the wings with a view to them eventually leaving the stage at some point in the near future, although neither had any inclination to break off their conversation. "Did you see our honourable patron, Monsieur le Vicomte?" Meg continued. "He was absolutely entranced. I swear, if he'd leaned any further out of the box during the prison scene cadenza he would have fallen into the orchestra pit and completely ruined your finale. And he's _very_ rich, and _very_ handsome. There's no denying it."

"Meg, I've never seen him!"

"Well, I don't think you'll have to wait very long," said Meg. There was a long pause. "He is very handsome," she repeated, a little dreamily.

"Meg! Meg! Marguerite Giry! Where are you?"

Madame Giry's voice echoed up the steps from the ballerinas' dressing rooms.

"Oh crumbs," said Meg emphatically, immediately looking around for somewhere to hide. She was visibly considering trying to get up to the fly floor where her mother, who suffered from vertigo, wouldn't follow her, but she seemed to decide against it on account of her being unable to climb the ladder in her ballet shoes.

"What have you done now?" asked Christine.

"Nothing!" exclaimed Meg. "I can't think why she'd looking for me!"

"Meg, there you are! I've been looking all over everywhere for you, where have you been?" Madame Giry appeared at the top of the stairs.

"Up here on the stage, _Maman_, nowhere sinister."

"I need to speak to you about… Oh, Christine, my dear," she said, as if she had only just realised that Christine was there. "You made a wonderful impression. A truly spectacular début, especially mid-season with next to no rehearsals or professional coaching."

Meg took this opportunity, with her mother distracted, to slip away; unfortunately her mother noticed her absence far quicker than she had noticed Christine's presence and she ran down the stairs, her daughter's name echoing through the theatre's halls once more. Christine was left alone apart from the stage hands shifting the scenery around the wings, and so, borne along on her cloud of pure, musical joy, she made her way back to her new dressing room. A single red rose was waiting in a vase for her, along with a note in an unfamiliar hand. She sat down at her dressing table and unfolded the sheet of paper but before she could read the message inscribed thereon, a voice made her start and spin round.

"A triumph, _ma petite allouette_."

Erik was standing in one corner of the room; she had not noticed him when she had first come in. A satisfied smile rested on his twisted features. Christine ran across the room and flung her arms around him. He staggered slightly under the force of the action but held his balance and tentatively returned the embrace, patting her shoulder with one gloved hand.

"Oh, Erik, it was wonderful! I couldn't have done it without you, thank you so much!"

"Enjoy the feeling, mademoiselle. You deserve it. You have come very far, and I am very proud."

"You aren't leaving?" exclaimed Christine in alarm. "Not when there's so much more to learn?"

Erik shook his head.

"Mademoiselle, I have no intention of leaving you in the lions' den so soon after helping you get into it. As long as you are willing to learn, of course."

Christine nodded and, after a moment's hesitation, hugged him again for good measure.

"How did you get in here unseen anyway?" she asked, breaking away to return to her dressing table. "Is there nowhere in this theatre that you haven't found a way into?"

"I make it a habit, Mademoiselle Christine."

Christine smiled and picked up the note that had accompanied her rose, this time succeeding in reading it. Suddenly, as the seemingly disconnected words began to make sense, several things linked together in her mind, and Christine let the letter drop onto the table in surprise, gazing at her reflection in the mirror. The person she saw in her mind's eye, however, was someone far younger, before her father had passed away and she had begun on the stage. The theatre's patron, who was, according to Meg, very rich and very handsome. Monsieur le Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. They had been children together but Christine had not seen him for many long years. She had almost forgotten him, the proud but mischievous boy from her not-so-distant youth.

"Christine?" Erik's voice was concerned. "Is something the matter?"

Before Christine could reply, there was a knock at the door.

"Mademoiselle Daaé, the patron of theatre would like to extend his personal congratulations."

Christine was muted, glancing from the door to Erik and back again, finally looking at her reflection and being startled on how wide-eyed and unnerved she looked.

"One moment," she called eventually.

She heard the box attendant move away and flew around the room in a sudden flurry, very aware that she was still in her costume and heavy stage make-up. Erik stood in his corner, silent and still, watching her activity with a mixture of amusement and perplexity. Finally she settled on pulling on her dressing gown over the grey dress and she opened the door a crack, peering around it to find herself face to face with a man whom she had not seen for a very long time. If she had not known it was Raoul, Christine was not altogether sure that she would have recognised him, but she soon picked out the familiar features in his face. She couldn't deny that Meg was right; he had grown into handsome adulthood.

"Christine Daaé. It has been far too long." He kissed her hand magnanimously and Christine found herself blushing at the gesture. "A magnificent performance, Christine."

She smiled.

"Thank you, Raoul. It really has been a long time. Thank you for the rose."

"I'm glad you like it. May I come in? You look rather uncomfortable squashed in the doorway like that."

Christine started, remembering Erik's presence in the room and the headlines in the morning paper.

"I really don't think that would be a good idea, Raoul," she said hastily.

"I can assure you that my intentions are entirely honourable and I would leave the door open. I simply thought that it would be pleasant to reminisce a little more privately, that's all."

"I don't know, I'm very tired after the performance, and I have to change, and…"

Raoul held up a hand to stop her anxious pattering.

"It doesn't matter, Christine, I was going to invite you to supper in any case; we can talk then."

"Raoul, I really don't think…" Christine was frantic, very aware of Raoul's obliviousness in front of her, and Erik's presence hearing every word behind her, and wishing she knew what to do to make one of either of them go away and render her life at that precise moment in time a little easier.

"Christine," Raoul interrupted, "soon the entirety of Paris will be talking about the starring soprano who came out of nowhere. We need to celebrate your very great success in style and besides, I want to hear how it all came to be. Firmin was telling me some cock-and-bull story about the monster of Paris scaring away Carlotta and I don't believe a word of it." He paused. "I won't keep you out too late, if that's what you're worried about."

"No, it's just…"

"Then I'll see you at the entrance." Raoul bowed. "It has been a pleasure to remake your acquaintance, mademoiselle."

As soon as he was gone, Christine closed her door and leaned back against it with a sigh of relief, closing her eyes.

"I knew him a long time ago," she began to explain to Erik, but on opening her eyes she found herself along in the room.

"Erik?"

There was no sign of him; he had disappeared in the same way that he had gained access to her room. Christine slumped against the door, unsure of what to do. She didn't want Erik to feel that she had cast him aside, and she had still not been able to warn him that the net was closing in on the opera house as his place of refuge, but how could she follow him when he could be in any one of an infinite number of places and she had no idea how he moved from one to the next? And there was no reason why she shouldn't celebrate with Raoul, a night away from the theatre would do her good for a change…

Christine changed out of her costume and washed away the exaggerated make-up, wishing that she didn't feel so confused.

X

"Christine! Christine! Oh, Christine, you'll never guess…"

Meg ran up the stairs to the singers' dressing rooms in her bare feet; she had been so eager to tell her friend her news that she hadn't stopped to put on any suitable shoes after her mother had forced her to take off her pointes before she caused herself or someone else an injury with her mad careering around.

"Christine! Christine! Hélène Dubois is leaving in disgrace and you'll never guess, I've got her place in the _corps de ballet_; I'm in the first row! Christine! Did you…"

Meg had reached Christine's dressing room and yanked the knob only to find it locked.

"Ouch," she muttered, rubbing her shoulder where she had run into the door. "Christine? Are you in there? It's me! Meg! Marguerite Giry, second dancer in the _Opéra Populaire_ ballet!"

She bent down at the keyhole and peered into the room but she could see so little that she didn't know why she had made the effort. She was on the verge of breaking out a hairpin, worried that her friend might be lying on the floor in a dead faint, when the next door opened.

"Mademoiselle Daaé left a few moments ago," said Monsieur Pinceau. "Congratulations on your appointment, Mademoiselle Giry."

He disappeared back into his room and Meg stared at Christine's dressing room door for a while before taking off again. Perhaps Christine had gone to see Erik and she'd be able to break the news to both of them at the same time. Oh, the beautiful irony that they should both receive such good fortune on the same day. Well, Meg's wasn't quite as dramatic a change, but it was another stepping stone on the road to fame…

"Erik? Christine?" she whispered as she descended into the vaults, picking her way through the old scenery to where Erik usually haunted. There was no sign of either of them, and Meg's feet were getting cold. She shivered, pulling her shawl closer in around her, and made her way back up to the theatre, ducking into the almost empty house to take a shortcut back to the ballerinas' rooms. Meg was perturbed, where could her friend have got to? Looking up, she thought she saw her standing on the steps outside. Meg grinned.

"Christine! Christine! Guess what!"

Christine didn't turn round as Meg careered through the front doors, for at that moment a carriage had pulled up and the Vicomte had alighted, handing her into it. She didn't look back.

Meg stared after the carriage for a long time. The only thing that could have made her look any more dejected, she thought, was if it had been raining. Christine was gone, off mixing with the cream of Parisian society. It had been so quick. This time yesterday, she and Meg had been sitting in their dressing room gossiping together. They had lived in each other's pockets for so long, and now Christine seemed so far away.

X

"André, my friend, even you cannot deny that this evening was a complete success."

"Yes, Firmin…"

"Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat!"

"Yes, Firmin, but…"

"What I'd like to know is, why had we never discovered Mademoiselle Daaé's talents before?"

"That aside, Firmin, what are we going to do about this?"

The two managers were in their office; André was sitting behind the desk when he finally managed to get a word in edgeways in the midst of Firmin's expounding and he emphasised his point by jabbing the newspaper on his desk violently with an index finger.

Firmin paused in his pacing up and down the room, his glass raised in the air as an oratorical aid. Silently, he lowered it to his lips, took a long draft and came over, reading the headline.

"André, I don't see why we should do anything. The theatre was full tonight. If that's the kind of revenue that the monster brings us then he can move in for all I care."

"Firmin, that is hardly helping! Paris is terrified and, tonight aside, you can't deny that ticket sales have been down this past month! I don't think that, what with our already famous phantom, a resident murderous monster will help our popularity."

Firmin turned his head on one side, leaning on the table and pouring André's untouched glass into his own now-empty one.

"Is there any proof of his being murderous?" he asked. "I thought the only person who'd died was that old dear in the _Rue de Faubourg Saint-Honoré_."

"Firmin!" André looked positively mad, his nostrils flaring as he glared at his partner.

"André, you know my views. As far as I'm concerned, the monster being sighted in the vicinity of the opera house will do no damage to our box office takings. Quite the opposite in fact. People will flood from miles around to try and catch a glimpse of this infamous being. He'll make us famous by proxy."

It was at these words, Firmin reflected later, that André's entire physiognomy had taken on a transformation that, to a lesser man, would have been terrifying in its suddenness. Thankfully, Firmin was possessed of an iron constitution and nerve and he had imbibed so much wine during the course of the evening that it took him several seconds to realise that his friend was no longer looking harassed but was wearing an expression of enlightenment, a hungry grin spreading over his face.

"Firmin, I've just had an idea. You're going to love it. It literally just came to me."

Firmin raised one eyebrow.

"Does it involve us making lots of money?" he asked plainly. André nodded vigorously. "Then it's probably an excellent idea. Fire away."

"People will come from miles around to see the monster, you say?"

"Yes."

"What if we were the ones to catch it?"

Firmin looked at his partner as if he really had gone mad this time. André pressed on regardless.

"Not only would we receive the hefty reward that the state is offering for its capture, we would create a legend that would keep the house full for decades to come! André and Firmin, the famed monster catchers of Paris! Come and see the place where it all happened, the _Opéra Populaire_!"

Firmin was not entirely convinced.

"And the dinner invitations wouldn't stop coming for at least a year," André added.

"Now you're being ridiculous," said Firmin sternly, "and you don't have the excuse of a bottle-and-a-half of wine. No-one invites you to dinner, André, you talk politics too much and it ruins people's appetites. As for the rest of the plan…"

Firmin considered it. On the one hand, despite his flippant remarks concerning the monster's taking up residence in the theatre, he was not altogether sure that the scheme was fully without danger. On the other hand, as André had put it so well, the publicity would be enormous and unrepeatable. They'd never need to pay a billsticker again.

"So what precisely would we have to do to catch this monster?" he asked, still refraining from passing judgement.

"It would have to be a large event, lots of witnesses…" André's face had now taken on a faraway aspect as he thought up details to his improvised plot. "The end of year ball, for example, where we announce the coming seasons' productions. And we would of course need something to lure the monster to us…" André fixed Firmin with a scheming eye. "I have been watching your little protégée, Mademoiselle Daaé, and I think that there is something about her that doesn't quite add up. The sudden increase in supernatural stories floating around the theatre, the monster sightings, Mademoiselle Daaé… All coming on top of each other as they are…"

As uneasy as this statement and the tone in which it was said made him, the haze of red wine was settling in a heavy cloud over Firmin's judgement.

"It sounds like a good enough plan to me, Gilles. Let's do it."


	5. Chapter 5

**A Phantom in Paris**

**Five**

Meg didn't look up from her intense study of the morning's newspaper as Christine entered the dressing room they had only stopped sharing the previous night.

"Aren't you on the wrong floor?" she asked coldly. The tone immediately struck Christine.

"Meg? What's wrong? Have I done something?"

"No," replied Meg, her voice brittle, "I just thought that since you're now the star of the show and you have close friends in high places, you wouldn't want to waste your time on me."

"Meg, don't be like that." Christine sat down on her old chair in front of the mirror and took Meg's hands in hers. "You're my best friend. I wouldn't even be on the top floor if it hadn't been for you."

Meg looked up at last and gave her a weak smile.

"When I said you would meet the patron soon, I didn't realise that your acquaintance was going to become quite so intimate quite so quickly." There was an embarrassed note in her voice now.

Christine grimaced.

"Meg, you make it sound as if he swept me up in his carriage and made mad, passionate love to me all the way to the _Arc de Triomphe_."

"Did he?"

"No!"

"He did sweep you up in his carriage though," Meg pointed out knowingly. "I saw."

Christine sighed.

"We knew each other when we were children, Meg. Father and I stayed in the area where his family has its land for a long time."

A wave of relief spread over Meg's face before she gave a hasty cough and resumed a neutral expression. Christine hid her smile.

"So," the little dancer began with a grin. "Tell me all about it."

Christine shook her head.

"Later. Firstly I think congratulations are in order." She pulled Meg into a hug. "Well done. Hélène told me on her way out this morning."

It was as if they had never been apart, never had a moment of insecurity, gossiping and laughing as they had always done before. As wonderful as her night out on the town dining with Raoul had been, it was nice to come back to some familiarity, Christine reflected. It was going to get very lonely on the top floor if she didn't have Meg's bubbling brightness to keep her going, and…

"Erik!" Christine exclaimed suddenly. "We need to warn him he's been spotted. You saw the headline Carlotta had yesterday."

Meg's face fell.

"You evidently haven't seen the headlines we've got today," she said, holding up the paper for Christine to read.

_SECOND MONSTER SIGHTING AT OPERA_

"Oh no…"

"It says that he was on the roof." Meg's brow furrowed. "What on earth was he doing on the roof?"

Christine worried her bottom lip nervously between her teeth.

"He was in my dressing room when Raoul came to see me last night," she admitted. "When I came back in, he'd vanished. Perhaps he received the wrong impression."

Meg stared into the mirror, unseeing as she contemplated what they should do next. Christine was pursuing a similar train of thought. When they had first brought Erik to the theatre, no-one had given any thought to the long term. It made sense that they could not hide the monster of Paris indefinitely, however much they might try to conceal him until the fervour concerning his appearance had died down. But if too much attention was brought upon the theatre, it wouldn't be long before someone started taking these sightings rather more seriously than the majority of the cynical population and their mission would be in jeopardy. If it came out that she and Meg had been helping the fugitive… Christine didn't like to think what would happen to any of them if Erik were found in his hiding place in the vaults.

"Well, the least we can do is warn him," said Meg firmly, patting Christine's arm as she jumped up and made for the door, obviously having come to no more conclusion than Christine had. "Perhaps, if no-one sees him for a while, it will all go away."

Christine nodded and followed her friend out of the door, looking around furtively for any observers as they crossed the entrance hall and ducked into the shadowed doorway that led to the vaults.

"You know," Meg grumbled as she struggled with the heavy lock, "life would be so much simpler if Erik taught us some of the secret passageways he's found. Duck!"

They crouched in the shadows as someone came into the entrance, also looking as if they didn't want to be seen. Christine's eyes narrowed as she recognised the fur-collared coat; it was André.

"What's he doing here at this time of a morning?" Meg hissed. Christine batted her to keep her quiet and they watched silently as André checked the coast was clear before taking the stairs two at a time and hurrying into the auditorium.

"What's going on, do you think?" asked Meg as she got to her feet again and returned to the more pressing business of the stiff door. "Duck!" she said again. "It's Carlotta," she added. "What's she doing here? I thought she was never going to darken our doorstep again? All right, all right, I'm being quiet." Christine removed her foot from Meg's toes as Carlotta hurried past them, following in André's footsteps. "Maybe she's just come to collect something, or clip Piangi round the ear."

"Hmm," Christine muttered. "I'm not so sure. Perhaps she's more scared of my success than she is of Erik. Perhaps yesterday's performance was destined to be a one-off."

It was Meg's turn to bat her friend.

"Don't be so pessimistic," she said. "But what _do_ you think is going on?"

"I don't know, but I don't like it," said Christine through gritted teeth. "Carlotta's one thing but André's another. I don't trust him at all, Meg."

"Hmm." Meg pondered as the door swung open and they made their way carefully down the wide stairs to the vaults. "There's certainly something strange about him. Have you noticed that he never drinks? Well, I don't suppose you have, but I've seen it. Monsieur Firmin always has a snifter to hand, so did Monsieur Lefèvre when he was in charge, but even after the working day is over, whilst they entertain the élite in their box, André never partakes of the wine." She paused as they reached the bottom of the steps and had to hop over a puddle that had formed in the subterranean room after heavy rain had fallen in the night. "Which made it all the stranger at the party when he seemed so drunk he could barely string a sentence together despite not having touched the champagne all evening."

"Meg, how did you..?"

"It was the night Erik came, remember? I spent most of it hiding under the bar and having finally got us some champagne I dropped the blessed stuff. All the same, there is something definitely odd about Monsieur André."

"_Mesdemoiselles_?"

Erik's voice reached them like a whisper on the breeze and it took them a while to find him in the dingy darkness, his eyes still blazing behind the mask that he now wore habitually except on some occasions when he was alone with Christine.

"Oh, Erik, you're all right! I couldn't find you yesterday, I thought you'd vanished," said Meg. "I never thought to look on the roof."

"Ah. Yes." Erik looked away sheepishly. "I needed a little fresh air to… gather my thoughts."

"You've got to be careful," Christine pleaded. "People have seen you; we don't want you to be caught. You know I need you, I said that yesterday before Raoul interrupted."

Erik made no reply. He looked at her, his expression hidden by white resin but his eyes searching.

"Erik, one successful performance as Margareta is nothing in the grand scheme of things. I do need you."

It was completely true. Christine had felt a horror in her veins on learning that Erik had been spotted again, but it was not merely at the thought of losing such a talented music tutor. Over the past two weeks, Erik had become a friend to both her and Meg. In the dim light of the vaults or the wings where he would secret himself away and where his face could not be seen, he was easy company and could have been any normal man, any normal conversation partner. He regaled them with tales of the wider world that he had seen on his travels, and Christine and Meg would share theatrical anecdotes. And sometimes, after one of their lessons, Christine would sit by him on an old, moth-eaten chaise longue with stuffing spilling out of the bottom and tell him of her aspirations, aspirations that he had become a part of. She wanted to travel Europe and sing the most famous operas in the most famous cities. Mozart, Puccini, Wagner, Dvorak; Italy, Spain, Bavaria, England… She hoped he would accompany her. Perhaps they could set him up as an eccentric anonymous impresario whom no-one ever saw. And Meg would come too, of course, and travel with them as far as Russia, where she would join the Mariinsky as their prima…

"Christine!"

Meg's voice pulled Christine back to the present.

"Sorry, miles away."

"That was obvious," Meg remarked drily. "Back to the task at hand. Erik, we think you should like low for a while, and, well, be careful."

Christine nodded her agreement and eventually, Erik added his.

"I will be cautious," he said. "But I would like something in return."

"Anything," said Christine, relieved that he had taken their fears to heart.

"This room is really no place in which a star soprano should practise her art. I would not want the damp to affect your lungs. If we could hold our instruction elsewhere, I believe it would be to your benefit."

Christine nodded.

"Of course. We can use my dressing room. I don't think Pinceau will pay any attention."

"Christine," said Meg suddenly, "what time is it?"

Christine shrugged.

"I've no idea, why?"

"I've got the horrible feeling we should be at rehearsal."

Erik failed to stifle a laugh as the two girls scrambled to their feet.

"I'll see you tonight?" Christine asked. "After the performance, like last night. Hopefully we won't be interrupted this time."

Erik nodded.

"And, Erik, please be careful."

"Of course, _ma petite allouette_. I will be very careful"

Christine wanted to tell him about André's suspicious behaviour but Meg was already pulling her away.

"Keep an eye on André!" she yelped over her shoulder.

They relocked the vault doors and were halfway back to the dressing rooms when they were arrested by a familiar voice.

"Where have you been?" asked Madame Giry. "The rehearsal has already begun and given both of your newness to your current roles I would have thought it advisable for you to attend! Just because you have moved up a floor or two, Mademoiselle Daaé, does not mean that you can afford to be lax in your practising!"

"Yes, Madame Giry, but I thought that since La Carlotta had returned, I would be resuming…"

"What are you talking about, child? I can assure you that Signora Guidicelli has not returned to us."

"But!" Meg began indignantly, gesturing up the stairs to the auditorium where the two girls had seen Carlotta earlier. Her mother held up a hand.

"Not another word. Monsieur Gilliéron is waiting!"

Meg and Christine hurried away.

"Something's up," muttered Meg. "Something is definitely up."

Christine didn't reply. She had the horrible inkling that whatever the something was, it was to do with Erik…

X

Christine had thought that nothing would be able to match the feeling of exhilaration she had felt at the end of her first performance, and she would very nearly have been proved wrong if it hadn't been for the sense of foreboding that had been hanging over her all day. At several points during the rehearsal and the performance itself, she had been on the verge of pleading an imminent headache or fainting episode and going off to check that Erik was still safe below ground. No-one had made any mention of Carlotta's reappearance at the theatre that morning, indeed, no-one had made any mention of Carlotta at all save at the end of the prison scene rehearsal, when Piangi and Gilliéron entered a heated argument in Italian, the essence of which, the pianist had informed her, was the tenor's reluctance to catch his swooning damsel in distress.

"Piangi's pleading a bad back," the pianist had translated for her as she sat beside him whilst the argument was resolved. "Funny, he never seemed to have any problem holding up Carlotta, and you're about a quarter of her size."

Christine had laughed and Piangi had, however reluctantly, caught her before she hit the ground this time. Whilst she was on the stage, her anxieties were lost in the music, and the rush that singing brought to her was enough to quell her fears for a little while, but as soon as she came into the wings having taken her final, elated bow, her fear for Erik's safety returned. She raced back to her dressing room without stopping to accept the congratulations of the rest of the ensemble, who were still impressed that her jaw-dropping début the previous night had not been a fluke.

She breathed a sigh of relief on finding Erik waiting for her in her room, and as she locked the door, she began to relax.

"Another excellent performance, _allouette_," he said, bowing to her. "But you seemed rather more tense."

"Well, the second time is always more nerve-wracking, said Christine. "Trying to emulate your first success." There was a pause. "And I was worried about you," she admitted. "Oh, Erik, I'm so glad to see you in one piece." She crossed the room to him, unsure of quite how to express that gladness. Yesterday she had embraced him in her gratitude but today, in a sharper frame of mind, she wasn't sure of the propriety.

"Christine, I am the last thing you should be worrying about." Erik cupped her face gently, turning it up to look at him. Their eyes met. "I'll not be the cause of you tumbling from your current lofty perch. Concentrate on your art, Christine."

Christine sighed, studying Erik's eyes. They were dangerous, betraying hidden strength, and many would decry their burning yellow depths as inhuman, but Christine knew better. They showed the anger he felt at his painful and deprived life, and Christine had noticed them changing over the length of their acquaintance. Eyes were the windows to the soul, and so her and Meg's friendship and care had provided a balm for Erik's. However much he might tell her not to worry about him, Christine could not excise him from her thoughts. He had become such an important part of her life so quickly and she didn't want to lose him. She told him as much.

Erik bowed his head.

"Christine…"

She couldn't work out his patterns of addressing her; he would add and omit the 'Mademoiselle' before her name seemingly without rhyme or reason, and sometimes she was simply his _allouette_, his little lark.

"Thank you. I am not used to having someone so concerned for my welfare."

Christine pulled his hands away from her face and went up on her toes to remove his mask and kiss his cheek.

"You have an honest heart beneath a deceptive appearance," she said. "A far better man than many I have seen. You are worth being concerned for."

Erik smiled; his mouth was slightly lopsided and the result would have been terrifying to anyone who had not become accustomed to it.

"I think that we will perhaps have no lesson this evening," he said. "You are already tired and fraught and you should rest your voice. Tomorrow morning."

Christine nodded, and by degrees she became aware that she was still holding his hands. She looked down at their linked fingers and was about to say something when a knock at the door made her start and jump away as if she had been burned.

"Who is it?" she asked nervously.

"It's me," replied Raoul's voice.

"Raoul? What are you doing here? I mean, it was very good of you to come, but…" Christine tailed off, quite unable to believe the sense of déjà vu. Erik, she saw, was doing his best to suppress a smile and failing miserably. So much for no interruptions, his expression seemed to say.

"Well, I had to make sure that I wasn't just enchanted by a single spell." He paused. "Must we speak through a door?"

Christine raised her eyes to heaven in despair and, motioning for Erik to remain where he was, she crossed to the door and opened it a fraction, peering round the jamb. Raoul presented her with another rose through the gap.

"Oh, Raoul, you shouldn't have."

"Whyever not?" Raoul paused once more. "Christine, is everything all right in there?" He narrowed his eyes, trying to peer into the room behind her. "You seem nervous, is there a problem?"

"No, no problem at all, I'm just… not myself this evening."

"I'll say… Christine, you know you can confide in me if you do have a problem, I thought I made that clear last night."

"Raoul, I am perfectly all right, thank you for your concern, and your roses…"

"Christine." Raoul cut her off. "I don't know who you're trying to fool but it's not working. Is there someone else in there with you?"

"Raoul, it's really none of your business whether there is or isn't…"

But Raoul had already got his hand into the gap between the door and the frame, and as Christine couldn't bring herself to slam the door and break his fingers, he prised it open further to come face to face with Erik, still standing calmly in the centre of the room where Christine had left him.

"My God! No wonder at your fear!" Christine found herself unceremoniously bundled into the corridor as Raoul made a valiant attempt to defend her from Erik's benign presence. "Stay back, you loathsome creature! Christine, run, save yourself!"

Christine merely folded her arms, partly because she was afraid that Raoul was about to snatch back the rose that he had given her and use it as a makeshift rapier. Since she had been unable to prevent Raoul from seeing Erik, she had to bring him in on her and Meg's secret before he caused an uproar. She was inordinately grateful that Pinceau didn't appear to have returned to his dressing room yet. As the theatre's patron, Raoul was most definitely in a position to see Erik turned out of his new home, or far worse.

"Raoul, I would appreciate it if you desisted from threatening my tutor with death and dismemberment."

"Your tutor?" Raoul stood back in the doorway, allowing Christine back into her dressing room. "Christine, that man is a monster! _The_ monster!"

"No, he is Monsieur Erik, my singing tutor."

"But…"

The revelation was too much for Raoul, who collapsed in a heap on the floor in a dead faint. Christine looked down at him, up at Erik and then to the wide open door. Meg was standing there in the frame, changed out of her ballet costume and wearing sensible shoes. The little blonde looked down at Raoul and gave a muted squeak of alarm on recognising the patron.

"Oh dear."

"Meg, I think we may need chamomile tea. And possibly the smelling salts."


	6. Chapter 6

**A Phantom in Paris**

**Six**

It did not take too long to revive Raoul after Erik had hefted him onto the little sofa in one corner of the dressing room and Christine had put a cold flannel on his forehead. He came to with a splutter just as Meg returned, having cadged some smelling salts off one of the box attendants. He looked around his surroundings with bewilderment until his eyes alighted on Erik, who was sitting at the dressing table adjusting his mask in the mirror.

"Oh damn," he said faintly. "I thought I was dreaming that part."

"I can assure you, Monsieur le Vicomte, that I am entirely real," said Erik.

"That's what I was worried about." Raoul looked up at Christine, who was perched by his head ministering to the flannel. "Christine, what's happening?"

"You fainted, Raoul."

"How embarrassing."

"Would you like some chamomile tea?" asked Meg from her position by the door. "It's excellent for the nerves."

"I think I'd prefer something stronger, to be honest," said Raoul. He sat up and continued to stare at Erik, who returned the gesture. Christine, still not altogether sure of Raoul's state of mind and not trusting the two of them to be left alone together for a second lest one of them end up dead, came and stood pointedly between them to try and avoid any bloodshed before explanations had even begun. Meg suppressed a grin and stepped out of the room in search of alcoholic refreshment for the Vicomte.

"Did I understand you correctly?" Raoul asked Christine. "The monster of Paris is your singing tutor?"

Christine gave an exasperated sigh that only just managed to prevent a high C of frustration from escaping with it.

"He is not a monster," she said firmly. "He is a musician, Raoul, if it wasn't for Erik I wouldn't even be here."

Raoul still didn't look entirely convinced but he was prevented from making any comment by Meg's return, brandishing a bottle of Cognac in one hand and a tumbler in the other.

"You're all still in one piece then," she remarked as she handed the liquor to Raoul. "Glad to see it."

Raoul poured a generous measure into the glass and drained it in one swallow. The spirit seemed to restore him to his senses fully and he stood, pacing up and down the room in a few short strides. Christine shifted with every step to try and stay between him and Erik, but the Vicomte seemed to pay no attention to the other man; he was lost in thought. Eventually he sat down again and poured himself a second glass. Christine leant on her dressing table, trying to look relaxed, and Meg had resumed her position guarding the door, although the petite blonde would not prove too great a resistance to anyone who wanted to gain admittance by force.

"How on Earth did this come to be?" Raoul asked, his eyes moving from Christine to Erik and back again.

Relieved that everything would finally come into the open air, Christine began her story, with Meg offering helpful interjections at regular intervals where she felt that her friend had omitted something of vital importance. By the time that they had reached the end of the tale, Raoul's face was finally showing some degree of comprehension. After a moment's silence he got up and crossed the room to Erik, who had remained motionless and mostly silent for the majority of his story, watching the Vicomte and the two girls. He held out his hand and Erik shook it, the gesture seeming at last to admit him to the select ranks of those who knew Erik's true story.

"I apologise for my initial reaction, monsieur," he said. "I can't have made a good first impression."

"It is in the past, Monsieur le Vicomte. We are on an equal footing now."

Raoul nodded and sat back down, and Christine finally felt sure enough to give up her uncomfortable perch and sit beside him.

"Christine Daaé, you are incorrigible," he muttered. "Hiding fugitives in the vaults…" He broke off and stared hard at Erik although there was a faraway look in his eyes. Both Meg and Christine regarded him with furrowed brows.

"You know," Raoul said eventually, "I don't see why you should continue to have to conceal Erik. Why not introduce him to the world as your impresario? I mean, he looks as if he could easily be an eccentric genius with a mask and opera cloak."

Erik bowed and Christine considered it. Since his arrival in the opera house, she and Meg had been replacing his torn and tattered clothes with what pieces of costume they could find from the stores, and they had not done too badly to find him items that just about fit and just about matched. With the smooth white resin covering his face, there would be nothing particularly outstanding in his appearance amongst the wealthy and vibrant clientele of the opera. But whilst the monster of Paris was still on people's minds and suspicion was rife, Christine didn't think it was a good idea lest some over-exuberant soul attempt to get under the mask. She shook her head after a few more moments' consideration, giving her reasons succinctly.

"What what can we do?" asked Meg, sliding down the door and sitting on the floor, hugging her knees. "You can't hide forever."

"I've done well so far," said Erik. "I can just be more cautious in future."

"But you shouldn't have to be." Christine sighed. "We all thought you were a murderer at first sight and it's a sad reflection on the times."

"Maybe…" Meg began, but she broke off and shook her head. "No, that wouldn't work."

"Did it involve sleeping pills in Firmin's hipflask, by any chance?" asked Erik. "I remember that idea from just after I arrived."

"No, it was nothing of the sort. Hang on." Meg paused and pressed her ear against the dressing room door. "Someone's coming. Oh crumbs, I think it's Pinceau!"

"Don't worry, he's quite relaxed, he won't think anything of my hosting a veritable party in my dressing room," said Christine.

"It's not that!" exclaimed Meg, scrambling up. "I borrowed his brandy!"

Raoul looked down at the tumbler in his hand and then the half-empty bottle on the floor by his feet. Christine buried her head in her hands.

"Meg," she said mournfully, "what are we going to do with you?"

Meg didn't reply and continued to listen at the door.

"I'm sure it'll all be fine," said Raoul. "He'll probably blame Piangi and you can sneak it back later."

The dancer finally nodded and sat back down, satisfied.

"Where were we?" she asked.

"This plan of yours that didn't involve drugging Monsieur Firmin but wouldn't have worked anyway," said Erik. "I say we hear it, I certainly have no better suggestion."

"Well, I was working on the principle that if we got rid of the monster of Paris somehow, Erik would be free to re-enter society as Christine's eccentric genius," Meg began. "It would be perfectly plausible to think up some incredible history that's so preposterous as to be undoubtedly true. Perhaps he was a friend of Monsieur Daaé and only just got back from a commission to the Shah of Persia. Whatever his tale, the monster of Paris would be gone and Erik wouldn't, or shouldn't, be associated with him."

Raoul nodded.

"It sounds like a good idea to me. Wherein lies the difficulty?"

"In the execution," said Meg plainly. "If we somehow stage his capture, Erik would still need to escape in order to assume his new identity so we'd be back to where we began. Not to mention the whole host of other logistical problems that would present themselves along the way."

Silence enveloped the room once more, but it was not as melancholy as it could have been, for Meg's idea had ignited a small spark of hope in Christine's heart. It wouldn't be impossible, just very difficult. If only there was a way of laying the myth to rest once and for all. She went over to the window, peeping out from behind the thick curtains at the night sky above Paris, looking at the shadows and thinking of unseen presences lurking in them out of reach of the twinkling stars and silver moonlight, slipping about so silent and stealthy. All they needed was misdirection.

"I've got it!" she said at last. "At least, I think I have."

"Excellent," said Erik. "What is it?"

"We can kill you," said Christine, making the statement as simply as if she had been stating the weather.

"I beg your pardon?" Raoul choked on his third glass of the pilfered brandy and looked at Christine as if she had gone mad, but Meg seemed to follow her train of thought and grinned.

"Go on," she said.

"Death is as absolute as you can get. Therefore, if the monster of Paris were to die, no-one would question his disappearance and Erik would be free to play the part of the newly-returned aficionado."

"We'll fake your death," said Meg eagerly. "If we get enough witnesses, it should be breaking news and no-one would dare to contradict." She paused. "Do you think it would be stretching it to try and perform this escapade on the _Champs Elysées_?"

"Yes," said Erik firmly. Meg looked disappointed.

"How about the ball?" Raoul suggested. "Plenty of witnesses there, and attention is rather centred on the opera house at the moment. It would be a fitting end."

Christine nodded her agreement despite her unease at the delay that waiting for the night of the ball in three weeks time would engender. She could not rid her mind of the images of André and Carlotta sneaking around the theatre that morning, nor of the notion that they were plotting against her, Erik, or both of them. She would far rather enact the plan sooner rather than later, but Raoul was right, at the ball the opera house would be far more occupied than it was for a performance. All the same, whilst more witnesses might make the charade more convincing, it also meant more people to fool.

"We could use one of the mannequins in the vaults from _Hannibal_ last year." Meg was getting into her element now, her eyes glittering with excitement. "Nobody would notice if one of those went missing."

"Someone would notice when they came to remove the body," Erik pointed out. "As loathe as I am to pour water on your flame of creativity, mademoiselle, I don't think that even the most incompetent of Parisian sergeants would mistake a wooden mannequin for a human given the opportunity of a closer inspection."

"Then we'll just have to make sure that they don't get an opportunity for closer inspection," said Christine.

"Anyone know a local undertaker willing to take bribes?" asked Meg.

"Most people are willing to take bribes as long as the bribe is generous enough," said Raoul.

"Well, let's not take that chance, shall we?" said Christine briskly, not wanting to bring any more people into their already-complicated-enough-as-it-was plot if at all possible. "Especially when our local inspector is widely nicknamed 'the incorruptible'."

"Yes," said Meg vaguely, "I'd forgotten about the police again. Hmm. Any more ideas for preventing curious souls getting close enough to realise that the dead man is neither dead nor a man?"

Silence once more reigned over the little room whilst everyone was lost in their own contemplations.

"We need a… Oh, I don't know," Meg finished, waving her arms around with an exasperated air. "Wouldn't it just be easier if the opera house burned down and all casualties were consumed by the blaze to the point of being unrecognisable?"

"Meg, that's arson, and the last time I looked it was illegal," said Christine. "We're treading a fine enough line as it is."

"There's the danger of killing off several other people at the same time," Raoul added.

"And where would we all live afterwards?" asked Erik.

"All right, so setting fire to the theatre isn't the best of ideas. I'm trying!"

"We all are, Mademoiselle Giry," Raoul assured her. "Perhaps it would be best to adjourn this meeting and continue at a later date. We may all wake up with clearer heads and fresh ideas in the morning."

Christine nodded her agreement and managed to hide a yawn. The physical exhaustion that her sudden starring role had caused was beginning to settle in her limbs but her mind was still awake and alert, going over myriad possibilities for Erik's ultimate concealment, each as doomed to failure as the last.

"In that case I will leave you to get some rest after another spectacular performance. Mademoiselle Giry, if you would like to accompany me to the theatre doors?"

"I, erm, of course, I'd be honoured, erm, Monsieur le Vicomte…"

Meg had gone bright red and was completely unable to take her eyes off Raoul as he handed her off the floor, the picture of chivalry, and she was still staring at him after he had said his goodbyes and they left the room.

Christine burst out laughing as she shut the door behind them.

"I believe that Mademoiselle Meg is most taken with the young Vicomte," Erik said drily as Christine returned to the sofa.

"I think she's been smitten with him ever since she first laid eyes on him from underneath the bar at the party for his arrival," said Christine. "Who knows? Stranger things have happened."

She fell silent, and it took a while for her to gather the courage to confront her misgivings towards their so hastily improvised plan.

"Do you think it will work?" she asked Erik eventually. "I mean, provided we do think up a slightly more specific course of action than the one we have at the moment. Do you think it'll work?"

Erik considered it for a moment.

"I see no reason why it shouldn't," he said. "All such plans naturally come with a very high degree of risk but I think that we are all agreed that our other options are equally dangerous. No, I think it will work."

Christine hoped that he was right. It was not that she was pessimistic about their chances, but being the originator of the idea, she was only too aware of the multifarious possible pitfalls that it concealed, and she still couldn't put the manager out of her mind.

"Well, I suppose that if you're confident, I have no reason not to be." Christine paused. "After all, you take the biggest risk of them all. Do you trust me?"

"My dear Christine, I trust you with my life, which is what I am indeed doing, in a literal sense. That is why I have such confidence in our combined ability to succeed."

Christine nodded. She just wished that she could trust her own judgement, trust that she was doing the right thing.

"Christine, you must have faith. You are so confident when you sing, so assured; it's almost as if your voice brings you an entirely new persona."

"It does," said Christine. "When I sing I'm not Christine, I'm Margareta or Pamina or whoever else whose role I'm singing. Right now, I'm just me."

Just Christine, a young woman hopelessly aware of what she was attempting to undertake with just seventeen years of life experience and precious little knowledge of the wider world outside the warmth of the theatre and her father's nurturing wing.

"And you are your greatest role, _allouette_, for you are real."

Erik's hands encircled her own tightly clasped ones.

"Believe in yourself," he said, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. Christine looked down at their hands, and when Erik broke away from her she found she missed his touch.

"You will feel better in the morning," he said. "Tiredness does not aid a tense state of mind. No more worries, Christine. Things will work out well in the finale. Even the most terrible of scores and librettos can be rescued by a good finale."

Christine looked up to speak to him but he had vanished, leaving her alone in her dressing room. She could but wait for the next morning and their lesson, and hope that nothing befell either of them in the night.

X

Christine woke suddenly, the dream forgotten as soon as she opened her eyes but the fear still lingering. She had taken a long time to get to sleep in her little attic bedroom in the topmost part of the theatre, worrying about what was to become of them all, wondering whether their plans would work once put into action and ever-fearing the motives of André and Carlotta. Piece by piece her nightmare returned to her memory. She was in the depths of the opera house, running through passages she had not seen before, looking for Erik, unable to find any trace of him except his mask…

She sat up in bed, fearful. What if it was an omen; had Erik been snatched away in the night by someone who had discovered his mysterious methods of moving around the theatre? For a horrifying moment she thought of Raoul, what if he had changed his mind and betrayed Erik to the authorities? No, Raoul, would never do that. It was no use. She had worked herself into such a state now, and there was no way that she would be able to sleep again until she was satisfied that her dream was nothing more than a product of her over fraught mind and that her current – increasingly alarming – fears were unfounded.

She slipped quietly out of bed and put on her dressing gown and some soft-soled shoes before sneaking out of the room. She pressed her ear against the next door and could make out Meg's steady breathing. Her friend was a heavy sleeper and it would take more than a thunderstorm to wake her, but it was always prudent to be cautious. And, if she knew where Meg was, she could always run back and second her assistance is, God forbid, she found that something had happened.

Christine made her way through the darkened theatre by memory; she had been no stranger to night time ramblings in the days when she had first come to live in the opera house and become acquainted with Meg and her escapades. She shivered as she entered the vaults, only narrowly missing the puddle at the bottom of the steps.

"Erik?" she called, hopefully loud enough to wake him but not so loud as to startle him. "Erik?"

She picked her way through the old props and scenery but it soon became clear that there was no sign of life anywhere in the cavernous underground chambers. Christine tried to suppress the panic that was rising like a cold finger up her spine. The vaults were damp and not really a place ideally suited to being slept in, and given Erik's newly acquired vast knowledge of the theatre it was sensible to assume that he had found somewhere more comfortable to spend his nights. The only trouble was finding out where.

Christine re-entered the main house and wrapped her arms around her chest tightly to warm up, beginning to retrace her steps up to the top of the theatre. She paused when she passed her dressing room. Erik could get in and out unseen; was it really so much to believe that he might use it as a temporary residence when she wasn't occupying it?

She opened the door and entered the room, pulling back the curtains to allow moonlight to illuminate the small space.

"Erik?"

The silver light reflected in her full-length mirror in the corner, showing the room to be empty. Christine sat down on the sofa, determined not to start worrying, or at least not to start worrying any more than she already was doing. She was just being an overprotective fool; Erik was perfectly safe somewhere in the theatre and she really ought to go back to bed and forget the whole thing. There was nothing to be gained from combing the building looking for a man who would remain unfound for as long as he wanted. He could conceal himself practically anywhere, there was no chance that any mysterious malefactors would be able to track him down.

It was then that it caught her eye, the angle that the moonlight reflected off her mirror into the rest of the room. It didn't seem natural, as if the glass was on an angle somehow. Christine crossed the room to the mirror and peered at it closely, running her fingertips down the edges. Sure enough, there was a gap down one long side, and a slight draught was coming through it. Perturbed, she prised the gap open further and the mirror revealed its secrets, swinging open on silent hinges to reveal a dark recess in the wall. Christine could only gawp. At least she knew how Erik was getting to her dressing room now, but how had that passage gone unnoticed for however many years it had been there?

One mystery solved, Christine became more confident of fulfilling her original mission and she set foot inside the dark tunnel, wishing she had thought to bring a candle with her but too impatient to turn back and hunt out tapers and matches. Gradually her eyes became used to the dimness and she moved on, stumbling slightly when she came to a set of shallow steps.

"Erik?" she called. "Erik, are you down there?"

There was no reply, and Christine, as she kept walking, was horribly reminded of the dream that had led her to undertake this search in the first place. The darkness was interminable and disorientated her; she had no idea where she was in relation to the rest of the theatre and she was constantly expecting to come across the dull glow of Erik's mask abandoned on the floor at any moment.

All of a sudden she came to a stop as she reached what appeared to be a dead end, bricked in on all sides.

"Hello?"

Nothing. Christine turned, determined to retrace her steps and see if she had missed something on the journey down. The air in the passage was stale and dusty, and it made her light-headed. She sat down on the steps, too emotionally drained and with too much running through her head to continue at that point in time. Her thoughts incoherent but centred on the absent Erik and her own predicament, Christine began to cry, curling up on the rickety wood and muffling her sobs in her arms, made all the more despairing by the fact she knew that no-one could hear her.

She must have cried herself to sleep again, because the next thing Christine knew, light was pressing in at her eyelids, forcing her awake.

"_Ma petite allouette_, what have you done?"

Erik's voice was sad and resigned but wonderfully familiar. Christine opened her eyes and looked into his maskless face. He was crouched over her on the stairs, a candlestick in one hand illuminating the small alcove in which they were ensconced. She had never been so happy to see him.

"Oh, Christine… What am I going to do with you?" He blew out the candle and set it on the steps, picking up his songbird. Christine smiled weakly.

"Despair of me?" she suggested. Erik shook his head.

"I may do, if you continue like this. For now, though, I think I'll settle for loving you for being so worried about me."

Christine buried her face in his collar bone so that he couldn't see her expression.

_Loving you for being so worried about me._

_Loving you for loving me_, was the message behind the words, and it was only now that Christine was realising the full extent of her feelings towards the man in whose arms she safely rested. It was an almighty thing to try and comprehend, and she didn't know if her nerves could cope with a confrontation with her emotions at that point in time, not when there was the added element of Raoul, so newly arrived back in her life and so obviously determined to become a prominent part in it once more… It was all too complicated. As he bore her away back up the stairs and through a door that Christine had missed on her journey down, Erik began to sing to her softly, nothing she recognised but a soothing lullaby nonetheless. She let her eyes close, safe in the knowledge that Erik was unharmed and that he would take care of her, and that she could confront her feelings towards him with the new day.


	7. Chapter 7

**A Phantom in Paris**

**Seven**

For a moment when she woke up, Christine was certain that she was back in her attic room and nothing had happened during the previous night, that her nocturnal ramblings had been nothing but a dream. When she opened her eyes, however, she was soon made aware that it was all very much real and that she had no idea where she was.

"Good morning, _allouette_," said Erik. "He was sitting in one corner of a room that he obviously lived in, a large piece of staved paper on the ground in front of him and a pencil in his hand, composing without any kind of musical aid. There were no windows in the room but plenty of candles dotted about on every available surface. Christine propped herself up on one elbow; she was lying on a grand variety of cushions that she recognised as belonging to the auditorium seats before their re-upholstering the previous winter, and covered with a very heavy cloak that had undoubtedly formed part of someone's costume in seasons past. All in all, it was a comfortable bed, and Christine wondered how long she has been asleep in it.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Almost ten o'clock," Erik replied. "I didn't want to wake you, not after your… unusual night."

Christine shot up.

"Oh my word, they'll be wondering where I am, they'll think the ghost's made off with me in the night, they'll…"

"Christine…"

"I've got to go back, I've…"

"Christine!"

Christine tailed off sheepishly.

"Where are we, in any case?" she asked.

"Somewhere under the orchestra pit, I think," said Erik. "Come, I'll show you out. The quickest way comes out in the vaults, that's how I found this room in the first place."

Christine took his proffered hand and picked her way through the debris to follow him.

"Thank you," she said. "And thank you for rescuing me last night."

"Anything for a damsel in distress."

Christine opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it and concentrated on following Erik through the rabbit warren of passageways until they emerged into the dimly lit vaults.

"Christine! Christine!"

"It's ok, it's Meg," said Christine to Erik, but he has already ducked back into the dark tunnels, the entrance hidden from view behind an old curtain.

Meg skidded into the room and breathed a sigh of relief on seeing Christine.

"Oh, Christine! Where've you been? We've been worried sick, thinking you'd been spirited away by unknown maleficents in the night!" She came over and hugged her friend tightly, and then took a step back on seeing the state of Christine's nightclothes, covered in dust and cobwebs as they were.

"Where _have_ you been?"

"I've…"

"We've found her!" A loud yell came from the other end of the room. Christine could make out Bouquet and a couple of the other stagehands shifting scenery that Meg had scampered over in order to reach her.

"Oh my dear, are you all right?" Madame Giry rushed to the girls as soon as the path was clear. "Whatever happened?"

She patted Christine down for injury, looking at her with obvious concern.

"I was… I, erm, got lost… Sleepwalking…"

The excuse was flimsy and Christine knew as soon as she saw Madame Giry's eyebrows shoot up to her hairline that she had not been believed, but it was the only thing that she'd been able to come up with when put on the spot and she was going to stick to it for as long as possible. Thankfully, however incredulous she was, Madame Giry appeared to be too relieved to find Christine in one piece to press the topic further and left it lie.

"You'd better hurry and dress, my dear," she said once they were back in the main house. "Messieurs André and Firmin have important news to announce at eleven o'clock; the whole company is to be there."

Christine nodded and began to run up the stairs towards her little bedroom, Meg following hot on her heels.

"So what _happened_?" her friend pressed. "What have you been doing?"

"Oversleeping," said Christine. "I'll explain in a minute. Have you got any idea what this important news is?"

"Well…" Meg grimaced. "There's good news and bad news."

"And?"

They had reached Christine's room by this point and Meg did not follow her in, leaning on the door.

"Well, the good news is that Firmin and André are announcing the next production this morning."

"And the bad news?"

"Carlotta's back. Actually back, this time."

Christine sat down on her bed heavily.

"Oh," she said quietly. "Oh."

"Christine?" Meg tapped on the door. "Are you all right? Say something."

Christine didn't reply, lost in thought. A new production and Carlotta's return couldn't be coincidence. What were her chances of remaining in a singing role now that André's darling had come back? If there was one thing that Carlotta was most unwilling to do, it was share her limelight. Would she be returned to the obscurity of the ballet after the brief taste of wonder that she had known?

"Christine?"

Meg peered around the door and, seeing her friend half-dressed and immobile on her bed, rushed over.

"Oh, Christine, there are plenty of operas which have more than one main soprano part, most of them do. I am certain that Firmin won't forget you. I'll get _Maman_ to make sure he doesn't," she added with a grin.

Christine smiled and finally continued to get dressed.

"So now will you finally tell me what on earth happened last night and why I found you in the vaults in your nightgown at gone ten in the morning?"

"It's stupid really. Just me being a paranoid fool."

"Christine, stop evading the question. You're worse than Monsieur Gilliéron."

Christine gave in and relayed her tale.

"And I'd literally just woken up when you found me," she concluded, her stomach taking that opportunity to remember that she hadn't had any breakfast and remind her of the fact with an obnoxiously loud grumble.

"Mademoiselle Daaé!" exclaimed Meg, feigning shock. "You spent the night in a man's bed! Oh my word!" She smacked a hand against her forehead. "Oh the horror!" Laughing, she dragged the now fully-dressed Christine out of her room in the general direction of the auditorium and, Christine thought hopefully, breakfast.

"You have all the fun," Meg complained, leaving go of Christine's wrist to dive into her mother's room and fetch a bread roll for her friend. "Here, I can't hear myself think for your hungryness."

"It wasn't fun, Meg, the majority of it was nerve-wracking."

"But the knight in shining armour came for you in the end," said Meg. "I thought I was the one who had all the adventures but you're more than making up for lost time." She patted Christine's hand in a motherly fashion. "I've taught you well. What did Erik say when he found you, oh damsel in distress?"

"He said he loved me."

"WHAT?"

Meg dropped Christine's hand as if she had been stung and whirled round to face her friend. The little dancer's eyes were wide as saucers, her mouth opening and shutting but no words coming out. Finally speech returned to her and she put her hands on her hips in a display of utmost indignation.

"Christine Daaé, there are some things that you do not just casually drop into a conversation with your best friend and a declaration of love is definitely one of them. Why didn't you tell me before? That should have been the first thing that crossed your lips after we were out of _Maman_'s earshot! You… You… Forget what I said about having taught you well, I despair of you." Meg buried her face in her palm for a moment with a mournful sigh but her bright demeanour soon returned tenfold, her impish grin spreading across her face once more.

"Tell me _everything_."

"Meg," Christine protested, "I don't even think it counts as a declaration of love, and shouldn't we be getting to the auditorium?"

"We can talk and walk simultaneously," said Meg casually. "Now, were the words 'I', 'love' and 'you' in the same sentence in any shape or form?"

"Well, yes, but…"

"Then it counts."

Christine sighed and gave a verbatim account of the exchange in the dark in the early hours of the morning.

"That counts!" said Meg, performing a pirouette of victory at the top of the grand staircase, much to the consternation of Bouquet, who was at the top of a ladder fixing a lamp there.

"Meg, whether it counts or not, that's not what's concerning me at the moment."

Meg stopped spinning suddenly.

"What is?"

Christine pulled her out of Bouquet's earshot.

"The thing is, Meg, I think I love him."

Meg smiled and patted Christine's pale cheek.

"I'm sorry to say it but that, my dear old friend, is blindingly obvious."

"Meg, how can you know if I love someone when I don't even know myself?" Christine pleaded.

"Because I notice things, and for the past few days I've been noticing the way that you act around Erik." She paused, tilting her head a fraction a staring into the middle distance, as if she was remembering a scene long since passed. "You become so much more animated with him, so much more fluid and dynamic. It's almost as if your world becomes more colourful with him in it. At first I thought it was just the musical connection, but now I'm not so sure, because it happens even when you aren't singing. I noticed last night when we were all in your dressing room. Not to mention your overwhelming concern for his safety, of course. And, to be honest, Christine…"

"What?"

"Whether you believe in the notion or not, I'm certain he's your soulmate. I've never seen two people who fit together so perfectly. He's the Siegfried to your Odette, the Désiré to your Aurora, the…"

"The Faust to my Margareta," Christine murmured, lost in her own thoughts. It was true, what Meg said about them fitting together. She had known it from the first moment that their voices had intertwined, perfectly complementing each other. When she sang with Piangi on the stage, even though the tenor was singing the same notes, the accord between their voices was never as harmonious as when she sang with Erik.

"Oh, Meg, what am I going to do?" The realisation that she had begun last night and only fully had her eyes opened to now came in a rush and was both terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.

"Right now you're going to come into the auditorium and think about it whilst André makes his speech," said Meg, nodding to Bouquet as he came down from his ladder and tapped his rusty old pocket-watch. "It's almost time."

This connection with the real world and ever-continuing life brought Christine's mind sharply back into focus and she followed Meg and Bouquet down the staircase and into the stalls, slipping into unoccupied seats behind the rest of the cast, crew and orchestra just as André and Firmin took to the stage to make their announcement. As with everything in the world of opera, even the simple act of announcing and casting a production was done with a prerequisite degree of theatricality.

"Mesdames and messieurs, ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for attending," André began. "I am especially pleased to welcome Signora Guidicelli back into our midst." There was a smattering of polite applause as Carlotta turned round from her seat in the front row to beam on her colleagues; although her eyes narrowed when they made contact with Christine. For a moment the younger soprano was tempted to stick her tongue out but refrained from the childish action. "As you know, our current production is drawing to a close and it will soon be time for the next season to begin, one that will hopefully prove just as prosperous, if not more so, than this one. Yes, we have seen slight dents in our box office takings these past few weeks thanks to the nefarious intentions of the…" Firmin cleared his throat loudly and André changed the subject.

"Yes, well, that aside," he continued, "the time has come for us to decide upon our next production, with which we shall open the new season at the ball in three weeks' time. As you all know, it is customary to give preview performances of some of the arias of the first piece of the season on that grand occasion."

Firmin moved forward, evidently bored of André's speech already and wishing to move on with the proceedings swiftly so that he could be out of the theatre in good time for lunch.

"The _Opéra Populaire_'s next production will be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's _The Magic Flute_, and it is provisionally cast thus."

Meg reached across and crossed Christine's fingers for her.

"Prince Tamino, lead tenor, Signor Ubaldo Piangi. Papageno, lead baritone, Monsieur Philippe Pinceau. Sarastro, lead bass, Monsieur Thomas Manette…" Firmin rolled his eyes. "Someone wake up Monsieur Manette and tell him to practise his Sarastro."

Christine watched as Madame Giry leaned over and tapped the snoring bass on the shoulder. He woke with a start and, after listening to her murmured words and nodding his acknowledgment, proceeded to fall asleep again.

"Thank you, Madame Giry. Moving onwards. The Queen of the Night, lead soprano, Signora Carlotta Guidicelli."

Meg kept hold of Christine's hands tightly as Firmin continued.

"Pamina, second soprano, Mademoiselle Christine Daaé."

The murmurs rose in the auditorium as the rest of the company turned to look at her. Only two days before, Christine Daaé had been a ballet girl, and now, after a triumphant début, she was in a leading role of her own accord. There was no doubt in the whisperer's minds that she had the voice to carry the part off to perfection, but could she cope with an entire season of singing? Did she have the physical strength in that fragile-looking dancer's body? And what of Carlotta?

"Could we have some decorum, please?" asked Firmin plainly. "Thank you," he added on hearing the murmurs hush, before going on to name the lead mezzo and the minor characters. Christine wasn't paying any attention; she was too relieved. She was still singing. Carlotta's return hadn't eclipsed the impression that her voice had made. Even to be part of the chorus would have been enough, but to have a starring role once more, on her own merit…

"Well done, Christine." Carole, the lead mezzo, twisted in her seat and smiled at her co-star. "You've been tremendous these past couple of nights. Just don't peak too quickly. We don't want you fainting into Piangi's arms for real." She shook her head. "Who _is_ your tutor?" she asked in wonder. "There was nowhere near as much power in my voice at your age. Has Gilliéron been giving you private lessons?"

"My tutor…" Christine paused, wording her answer carefully "… is unfortunately out of the country at the moment."

"Well, this'll be a nice surprise for him when he returns."

Carole stood to leave; the auditorium was emptying in the wake of André and Firmin finishing their announcements and going out for lunch. Christine accepted the well-wishes of the other cast members. Pinceau came over.

"One day, they'll do _The Marriage of Figaro_," he said wistfully. "Madame de Balzan, Mademoiselle Daaé, congratulations on your roles, my feelings towards our managers' choice of opera notwithstanding. Madame de Balzan, may I escort you out? I'm planning to hold the costumiers to ransom if they try to force me into the dreadful excuse for an ensemble that they dreamed up the last time we performed this esteemed production and I may require your assistance…"

Carole and Pinceau left them, and Meg let out a laugh.

"Poor Pinceau," she said. "Every season, he prays they'll do _The Marriage of Figaro_ and they never do. Oh, Christine, it's official now. You are an opera diva and no mistake. I told you that Firmin wouldn't forget you."

"I know, I know."

"Now, you need to go and tell Erik your wonderful news."

"Meg, I'm really not sure."

Christine was torn. Part of her couldn't wait to run up to her dressing room and await Erik's arrival to tell him of her new role, but part of her was nervous. Were her feelings towards him as obvious to Erik as they were to Meg, and what if, despite his words of the previous night, he should not return them? She didn't know what her reaction her response would elicit from her friend, but she was certainly not expecting the one that came.

"I know how you feel," she said quietly. "After the Vicomte left last night I spent the rest of the evening cringing at what an utter fool I'd made of myself." She paused, smiling at her friend warmly. "But I am certain that your feelings are reciprocated, Christine. Just call it a hunch, and my hunches are usually correct."

"Except…"

"Except that single occasion when I was convinced that Monsieur le Conducteur was a vampire, yes, no need to mention that." She looked down at the orchestra pit with a sigh of nostalgia, remembering an exploit of a year or so ago when the unusually pale new conductor had arrived. "I was young and innocent then."

"Meg Giry, you have never been innocent."

Before Meg could protest Christine's statement, another voice joined them.

"Signorina Daaé."

It was Carlotta, Piangi hovering a few paces behind her. She smiled sweetly.

"I believe I must congratulate you on your nobly stepping into the breach that my absence caused. Your rise out of obscurity has been incredibly quick, my dear." The corners of her smile turned cruel and Christine felt a shiver run down her spine. "You want to be careful, signorina," she said in a lower tone. "People will start to get suspicious, and we wouldn't want you to fall from grace as quickly as you found it, would we?" She looked up and her pleasant mask immediately returned. "Ah, Signor André! If you could spare a few moments, I wish to speak with you in private."

She bustled out of the auditorium towards the manager; Piangi waited a few seconds to fix Christine with a knowing leer before hurrying after his leading lady.

Christine looked at Meg, who was not looking anywhere near as condiment as she had done a few moments before.

"This is not good," her friend said. "We need a plan, and we need it quickly."

Christine could not agree more. Carlotta had just made it perfectly plain with her words. Something was afoot, and she had the horrible feeling that Carlotta and André were plotting her and Erik's downfall in a spectacular style…

X

André was enjoying having the office to himself in which to refine the details of his plan, a plan that he had been able to secure Signora Carlotta's assistance in executing. Everything was coming together perfectly. All that remained to be done was to wait until the ball and wait for the monster to arrive, as he surely would when his little songbird took to the stage. André had no doubt that somehow the two were connected, and that the innocent little dancer was not as innocent as she seemed.

He heard Firmin's voice coming up the corridor, talking to someone… Madame Giry, he guessed, from the low tones of the replies to Firmin's loud statements. André rolled his eyes; he couldn't see what Firmin saw in the strict little woman, so like a school-mistress with her widow's weeds and sour ace, but he seemed most attached to her if his behaviour at the patron's gala was anything to go by. What was even harder to understand was the fact that Madame Giry appeared to let him carry on like this, not rebuffing him with her usual coldness and the air of frigidity that she carried around with her like a cloak.

The door opened and Firmin entered, shattering André's moment of tranquillity. He poured himself a generous measure of brandy from the bottle stored in the cupboard with the scores, and leaned on the windowsill, contemplating.

"I still say that we ought to have done _The Marriage of Figaro_," he said presently.

"Next time, Firmin, next time. Right now we need to keep our leading tenor sweet; he's in a petulant mood enough as it is thanks to Mademoiselle Daaé threatening to usurp our diva's standing. We need an opera with a strong main tenor role."

Firmin screwed his nose up at the idea. It was quite obvious to André that given the opportunity, his partner would have Carlotta and Piangi out on their ears and have anyone but the fiery Italians at the top of each bill.

As Firmin turned to look out of the window, André took the moment of his brooding silence to continue musing over his plans, putting a finishing touch here and there in his mind, something that would give the whole situation a more… _operatic_ air. He unlocked his top desk drawer and lifted the papers lodged therein to peer at the pistol that he had secreted there, checking it was loaded and ready. The hour was almost upon them…

**Note:** Meg's examples of soulmates both come from ballets: 'Swan Lake' and 'The Sleeping Beauty' respectively.


	8. Chapter 8

**Note: **In which I shamelessly steal a scene from 'The Worst Witch'. Blame Liz Robertson. For me, she IS Madame Giry, and her portrayal reminds me a little of someone…

**A Phantom in Paris**

**Eight**

It had been raining in Paris almost non-stop for a week, and Christine felt as if she would go mad inside the gilded cage that was the opera house if she couldn't go out soon. Her irritability was apparent to everyone; Meg did not even try to calm her, the dancer experiencing the same fever as the soprano. Carole de Balzan remarked with a laugh that she was becoming a worthy successor to Carlotta.

Now she had just snapped at Erik, storming out of her dressing room on him to seek solace in solitude. She made her way up to her attic room and passed it, stopping only when she reached the trapdoor that led to the roof. She was tempted, sorely tempted, to go out in the rain, to feel it cold and purifying on her skin.

She could be forgiven her tension. The ball was the next day and although they had gone over their plan time and time again, she still could not help but worry at the risks they were taking, of the many things that could go wrong at the last minute. And, of course, there was still the problem of her feelings for Erik, which still remained unresolved. It was time to confront them, for who knew what the morrow might bring?

She had not been able to see much of him in the past three weeks; the rehearsals for _The Magic Flute_ had taken up so much of her time, and on the few occasions that they could snatch to be alone together, Christine used the time to soak up his talents and instruction. Neither of them had mentioned that night; it was almost as if they both knew that a line had been crossed and that the action was irrevocable, and neither of them wanted to think of the consequences of revisiting it. So they left it lie as an unspoken monolith between them, but somehow, this gave Christine hope, hope that Erik was acting in the same way that she was because he felt the same way that she did.

And there was the ever-present problem of Raoul, of course, with his boyish charm, still trying to court her despite his lack of success. She loved him dearly as a brother, but she could not see him in any other light. The time that they had spent together and the connection between them lay in the simple, innocent days of her childhood, a time before Christine knew of the passion and fierceness that loving a kindred spirit could bring. She held this dear to her heart and she did not want to mar it by rejecting him brutally, but at the same time, she knew she would never love him as she loved Erik. For now, now she was as certain as Meg was that she was in love with the once-desperate man whose voice had captivated her outside the window that fateful night, her Angel of Music.

"I think the rain has stopped, _alouette_, even if only for a little while."

Christine started at Erik's voice but his presence did not surprise her. He opened the trap door and led her onto the roof, where the slowly setting sun could just be divined amongst the heavy clouds that threatened a fresh downpour at any moment. Closing her eyes, Christine breathed in the cool air, wonderfully fresh from the storm that had just passed, and she felt some of her burdens lift from her shoulders. She could sense Erik's presence beside her, waiting for… something, she knew not what. She didn't care, just enjoying their spending time in each other's company with no pressures upon them.

She knew that this could be the last moment they had like this, and she knew that it was now or never. If she declared her love and it remained unrequited, she would be devastated, but if her feelings were returned and something awful should happen the next day without her learning the truth…

Christine turned to Erik and opened her eyes, holding her hands out to his. She had noticed that he had become more tactile over the last few weeks, less tentative.

"Erik," she began, "you remember that night… when I got lost looking for you…"

"How could I forget? My most gallant hour." He laughed. "Why?"

"You… you said you loved me."

"Did I?" His voice seemed alarmed, although Christine did not know in what way the statement had caused his unease – saying that he loved her at all, without meaning it, or having admitted to the fact that he did indeed love her.

"You said, 'I'll settle for loving you for being so worried about me.' And I was wondering…" Christine took a deep breath. "How did you mean that statement? Do you love me in the way I love Meg and Raoul, like a sister and brother, dear friends? Or do you love me in the way… I love you?"

Erik squeezed her hands and his eyes beneath the mask burned.

"Christine, you swept into my life like a figurative whirlwind – Meg was a rather more literal one – and you both became the dearest friends I have ever known. But, Christine," he added, on seeing her lashes turn down away from his face to hide the tears that were forming there, "Christine, there is something in you so beautiful and precious, not just your voice, that I cannot help but desire. You are my missing piece."

Christine's breath caught in her throat. His missing piece, the one that made his soul complete, just as he had filled a hole in her life that she had never known existed, how she had not felt _real_ before he came into her life. Erik released her hands, bringing his own up to her face and pushing the wayward ringlets that had fallen from her coiffeur in her earlier ire behind her ears, cupping her chin and gently brushing her wet lashes.

"I was unsure of your relationship with the Vicomte before, but now I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that I love you, Christine Daaé."

Christine threw her arms around his neck, resting her head against his shoulder. Erik's arms encircled her waist, pulling her in close against him, wonderfully warm in the evening air that had begun to chill.

"I love you," she murmured.

They stayed in that position, enjoying their closeness, for a long time, until presently Christine reached up and pushed Erik's mask up slightly, allowing their lips to fully meet and lock together, like puzzle pieces, perfectly moulded. What little sun there had been had disappeared and left a black, moonless sky. No-one could see them, secluded as they were, unless someone with a mind for trickery and a head full of suspicions were to have followed them unnoticed along the corridors, a someone wearing a fur-collared coat watching in the shadows of the trap door and smiling a satisfied smile to himself…

X

They came inside as the first drops of rain began to fall, and on entering her dressing room to find Meg and Raoul already ensconced there, plotting, Christine immediately knew that Meg could see that something had changed between them, something had crystallised, become tangible. The dancer smiled, and her eyes flickered momentarily to Raoul.

"Erik!" she said, jumping up suddenly and with a brightness of such exuberance that it could not be misconstrued as anything other than an attempt to leave the two childhood friends together so that they could discuss this latest development in private. "Let's go and put the final touches on your costume for tomorrow."

Erik readily acquiesced, also evidently sensing the need for Christine and Raoul to talk. The Vicomte and the singer were left alone.

"Christine," Raoul began, "I'll cut to the chase because edging about it won't make matters any different." He paused. "Meg's right. It's obvious that you are in love with Erik."

"She told you?" Christine was indignant.

"I asked her," said Raoul. Christine sat down heavily on her dressing table chair, and Raoul perched on the sofa opposite her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's true. I'm sorry."

"You can't be sorry for being in love." He smiled wanly. "I can't pretend that I didn't have my hopes when I first came here to renew our acquaintance, but we're different people to the ones that we were ten years ago. It makes no sense for me to try and relive the past in the present. One loses sight of… other things."

Raoul was looking past her, at the door where Meg and Erik had left. Christine said nothing, but her mind kept coming back to a possibility.

"I suppose that I kept holding on, kept trying, because I was jealous. But tonight, it's more obvious than ever. You've found your Angel of Music."

Christine nodded.

"What I'm trying to say is, don't hold back because of me. You deserve to be happy and I don't want to prevent that because you feel you're doing me some kind of injustice."

Christine smiled, rising from her seat and leaning across to kiss him on the cheek.

"Thank you," she said. "I'm glad you understand. And you shouldn't hold back either. Happiness is what you make it, Raoul. Love can be unexpected sometimes." She laughed. "I should know."

There was a companionable silence between them for a while, and Christine finally felt at ease for the first time since Raoul had re-entered her life.

"Meg has some rather exciting news," said Raoul presently with a grin. "She's been um-ing and ah-ing about telling you all evening."

With impeccable timing, Meg came back into the room. Christine half-suspected that she'd been listening at the keyhole to check that the coast was clear and that she wasn't going to have to hunt out smelling salts for either party.

"So Meg, what's this news?" Christine asked.

"Monsieur le Vicomte!" Meg blushed bright red. "Very well. I _was_ going to tell you, I was just waiting for the right moment."

Suddenly, Meg seemed awkward, not a bit the impish dancer that Christine was used to seeing.

"_Maman_ took me to the ballet school this afternoon," she said. "One of the choreographers from the English Royal Ballet is visiting at the moment, looking for promising talent to take back to England with him. I danced for him."

Christine understood her sudden reticence. This was Meg's dream, just as singing was hers – to become part of a proper ballet company. As confident as she was in her everyday life, she was trying not to let her hopes up too high lest they be dashed. Christine crossed the room and hugged her friend tightly.

"Well done, Meg," she said quietly, knowing not to push the point or make a fuss of it. "I'm sure it'll turn out for the best." Meg nodded, and by degrees her usual demeanour returned.

"Well, I think it would be profitable for us all to turn in," said Raoul, "considering the enormity of events to come tomorrow evening. I gave my driver the night off, and it's a proven fact that as soon as it starts raining in Paris, all the cabs disappear."

They said their goodnights and goodbyes and Meg escorted Raoul down to the theatre's doors, as had become a custom between them. When she returned, she was fully back to her original gleeful self and she skipped over the threshold with a mischievous glint in her eye.

"Erik told me everything," she said happily.

"Meg, I know for a fact that Erik is not so indiscreet as that. What did you threaten him with?"

"_Moi_? Nothing! Well. It was more what he _didn't_ tell me that allowed me to deduce. You two are a proper pair, both as coy as each other. So now you can perhaps enlighten me a little more."

"It was a kiss, Meg, just a kiss. What more is there to enlighten?"

"Everything! What was it that I found in one of _Maman's_ books the other day… Ah yes – 'tongues dancing a _pas de deux_ over each other'…"

"Meg, that's disturbing."

"Christine, you are a prude."

"Not the dancing tongues, the fact that your mother reads that kind of book."

"Oh, believe me, it gets worse. How she expected me to grow up naïve and innocent when that's the kind of reading material she leaves lying around for me to find, I do not know."

Christine privately doubted that Madame Giry had left her books 'lying around', but she didn't voice this suspicion to Meg.

"It was just a kiss," she affirmed. "There was no _pas de deux_-ing or anything of that sort. It just… happened."

"You didn't bang teeth by accident?"

"No."

"Or noses?"

"A little… his mask wasn't off fully."

"Well, I'd call that a success. Congratulations, Christine, on your first proper romantic kiss." She grinned. "I'm going to bed. I need to find out what happens after Vicomte Réginalde and the courtesan Mignonette after the laminal ballet before Maman finds out she's a book short."

Christine followed Meg up the stairs, lost in her own thoughts and memories of the kiss, of the way they had fitted together, of the way that Erik's arms around her had made her feel so safe and warm, as if she could stay there forever. Unconsciously she wrapped her own arms around her waist, trying to emulate the feeling. She just hoped that it wouldn't be the last time she felt it, and she clung to it for as long as she could.

It must have been about two o'clock in the morning and Christine knew that she hadn't slept at all, when there was a tap on her door.

"Come in, Meg," she said. The little blonde's head appeared round the door and then she fully inserted her body.

"You can't sleep either?"

Christine shook her head. Meg came and sat on the end of her bed.

"Do you remember, just after you first came here, the night before our first performance? We couldn't sleep and ended up in here bouncing on the bed, and then _Maman_ came in and gave us such a fright."

Christine could indeed remember. They had suddenly come down to earth as the door had opened, silently but with force behind it, and they found themselves staring at Madame, her angry expression illuminated in flickering candlelight her long black hair, usually so tightly braided away, framing her face like a lion's mane and giving her the appearance of a fairy tale witch. Christine had not been able to look at Meg's mother in the same way for a long time afterwards.

She could also remember the very first night that she had spent at the opera house, a timid young thing still coming to terms with the loss of her father. Meg had crept into her room having heard her crying and they'd sat as they did now, knees under the covers to keep their feet warm, one at each end of the bed, talking about their plans. Christine just wanted to sing. Meg was more specific. She was going to join a proper ballet company, become a prima, dance the lead in _Coppélia_, marry an incredibly handsome Russian (and if he happened to be rich then that was perfect), and keep dancing until she bore him the first of at least three children.

"Meg," Christine began, the image of Raoul's long look at the door clear in her mind, "you remember your career plans?"

Meg nodded.

"How's the 'marry an incredibly handsome Russian' part coming along, or has he been replaced?"

Meg kicked her under the covers.

"You're as bad as I am sometimes, Mademoiselle Daaé."

They laughed, enjoying each other's company, but neither could deny the foreboding feeling that they felt towards the dawning day.


	9. Chapter 9

**Note:** In which Kimmeth grabs a character from another famous book-turned-musical and ceremoniously drops him roughly sixty years into the future... I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself, the scenario was crying out to me! Enjoy the finale! As is a tradition for me, I have posted the final two chapters together in a double bill.

**A Phantom in Paris**

**Nine**

Despite her trepidation, Christine was enjoying the ball. She always did, the noise and the light and the grand dresses, the costumes and masks, and she had to admit, her excitement was heightened at the thought that this year, her name was featuring on the posters advertising the great event. Her solo was last on the bill of entertainment for the evening, which gave them plenty of time to enact their plan and ensure everyone was ready.

Meg bounded over to her from where she had been secretly listening in on her mother's conversation with Firmin at the bar.

"Firmin's at it again!" She was positively beaming, the frills on her deep magenta ensemble bouncing as she skipped along happily beside her friend.

"Meg, I can never tell if you want to encourage this flirtation or stop it in its tracks. Have you considered that a possible outcome is Monsieur Firmin ending up as your stepfather?"

"Of course I've considered it. I think it highly unlikely, but hopefully, by the time it happens – if it happens – I'll be long gone with my handsome Russian, Frenchman, Bavarian, Dane, or whoever else happens to come along."

Christine shook her head in despair.

"You're incorrigible."

"Good evening, mesdemoiselles." A man tipped a feathered hat to them and Christine recognised Raoul behind the mask.

"You look most charming, Monsieur le Vicomte," said Meg, curtseying.

"As do you, Mademoiselle Giry. May I have the pleasure of this dance?"

She took the offered hand, giving Christine a look that she couldn't quite divine, and they went off together. Christine turned to pour herself some punch but was arrested by a touch on her shoulder.

"Would you care to dance, mademoiselle?"

She twisted and glanced behind her on hearing his voice; it was Erik.

"Erik!" she hissed as he whirled her onto the dance floor, the orchestra striking up a fast waltz. "You shouldn't be here! What if someone… notices you?"

"My dear," he said, taking her in hold, "I am simply one more masked man in here with several other masked men. Hiding in plain sight." Behind his mask, his blazing eyes twinkled slightly. "I just wanted one dance with you. Just in case."

He twirled her out as Meg and Raoul passed them; Meg's brow furrowed.

"Erik," Christine mouthed, and Meg winked. As he twirled her back in, she thought she saw Madame Giry and Firmin in one corner of the floor, but she didn't dwell on their presence. She was too busy savouring every last moment that she could spare with Erik before their plan took shape. All too soon, the dance came to an end. Erik bowed to her and she curtseyed, but as she looked up, he had melted into the crowd. She returned to the punch table, sinking onto a seat there.

"Have you been abandoned as well?"

She turned to see a woman in a deep green gown sitting beside her, merry eyes twinkling behind a mask. It was Pinceau's wife.

"Mine's left me on the pretence of 'but Madeleine, I have to perform in five minutes, there'll be more waltzes later!'" She paused. "May I inquire as to the identity of your partner, Mademoiselle Daaé?"

"Oh, erm, no-one special," Christine replied hastily. Madeleine raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I'd keep your eyes open if I were you, my dear, because if the looks passing between you two were anything to go by, 'no-one special' will become 'someone special' before you know it. I've never seen a man look at a woman with such passion and love. Well, Philippe came close on our honeymoon…"

Christine blushed involuntarily. Madeleine laughed.

"Oh my poor dear, I forget how young and innocent you are. But jests aside, he is very much attached to you, whoever he is."

Christine smiled to herself uneasily, pleased and worried at the same time. She took a sip of punch to steady her nerves and felt the alcohol burn her tongue. The next dance came to an end and the house lights dimmed, ready for Pinceau and Madame de Balzan to perform. Carlotta and Piangi had begun the evening, and Christine would be its finale, and what a finale it was shaping up to be.

Meg rushed over to Christine; even in the semi-darkness she could see that her friend was giddy with excitement.

"Oh, Christine!" she whispered. "I've just danced with the Vicomte twice, _and_ he's asked me to save the next one for him too!"

Christine smiled; Raoul had taken her up on her advice and was finally giving in to his feelings for Meg having hung onto his childhood sweetheart for so long. The stage curtains opened and the performance began. Christine was almost relaxed, but perhaps it was just the punch, unused to spirits as she was. Suddenly, she felt Meg stiffen beside her, and then the little dancer batted her arm surreptitiously to get her attention. Christine turned; Meg's eyes were fixed not on the stage but on the doors that led to the main house, open as they were to allow free passage to the bar. Christine peered through the doors and her heart sank. The unmistakeable figure of their _arondissement_'s police inspector was leaning on the bar, watching the stage from the house. André was with him.

"Oh crumbs," whispered Christine.

"My thoughts exactly," Meg replied. "God only knows what André's up to."

Their whispered conversation had attracted the attention of the guests around them and they were quiet once more, trying to concentrate on the stage, but Christine's mind was all over the place. She could only hope that their plan would still go off without a hitch.

The performance finished and the lights came up again.

"We've got to do something," said Meg as soon as the applause had died down. "What if..?"

"Mesdemoiselles…"

"Raoul, we've got a problem," said Christine, cutting the Vicomte off before he could sweep Meg away for another dance.

"What sort of a problem?" Raoul asked, alarmed.

"A tall, dark, policeman-shaped problem," said Meg drily. "In the bar."

Raoul looked in the direction in which Meg had jerked her head, remaining silent and ponderous for a moment.

"Leave it to me," he said eventually, removing his hat and mask and thrusting them at Meg for safekeeping. "I think I'll go and say hello to the good inspector."

"Raoul, you can't just…"

"Christine, if I use the 'idiot of Paris whose ancestors owned half of Normandy' guise, I can do just about anything." He winked at them before moving away. As he neared the doors, Christine heard him turn on the charm.

"Ah, Monsieur l'Inspecteur, delighted to see you. What will you have? _Garçon_!"

He struck up conversation easily as the inspector pointed out that he couldn't drink on duty, and André, sensing that his moment had been usurped, sidled away, looking livid. Immediately, Raoul's idiot act dropped and he whispered conspiratorially to the policeman. They moved away out of Christine's line of sight.

"Well, whatever he's spinning, let's hope it sticks," said Meg. "Oh dear, I'd better go and save _Maman_ from Manette. I'll be back as quickly as I can."

She rushed off, weaving between the guests to where the rather drunk bass had cornered Madame Giry and was telling her what appeared to be his entire life story, complete with exuberant hand gestures. Christine found herself alone once more, watching the dancers. Madeleine had succeeded in dragging her husband onto the floor. The seating in the stalls had been moved to allow space for dancing, and the chairs were now set up around the edge. Above her, she could hear people talking in the circle and balcony, discussing the evening so far. The slow waltz music coming up from the orchestra pit gave was giving everything a haunted, dreamlike air. Christine glanced up at box five, but she knew that she would not see any sign of Erik.

It was not too late for them to cancel their plans, to postpone their grand finale for another time, but if André was also planning a spectacular finish for the same night, wasn't it better to try and enact theirs first? Presently Meg returned with her mother. There was still no sign of Raoul and the inspector; Christine couldn't tell if this was a good thing or a bad thing. She only hoped that Raoul knew what he was doing.

"Not long now," Meg said. "_Maman_, why don't you sit down for a moment? You know gin has that effect on you." She pulled Christine away from her mother. "Christine, I haven't seen Carlotta for what I believe to be an inordinately long time," she hissed. "It might not mean anything but I thought you ought to know." She looked over Christine's shoulder and smiled. "I think Pierre wants this dance."

Pierre was a young tenor, hoping to take Piangi's place one day, and as commanding as his voice could be if he put his mind to it, he was not blessed with the greatest stature, nor any great guile when it came to women. Christine accepted the invitation that he couldn't bring himself to make with words and they took their place on the floor for a quadrille. Meg had spirited herself a partner out of nowhere and joined them to make up their set, but Christine was paying little attention to the dance. She had just spotted André standing in front of the orchestra pit and staring hard at the balcony, as if he was counting something. Christine tripped over Pierre's foot and they crashed into Meg, causing a domino effect of collisions around the floor. By the time that they had recovered, Christine saw that André was gone. The devastated quadrille at an end, Christine decided that it would be better for her to go and wait in the wings for her solo, even though there was still a good twenty minutes before she was due to perform. From the stage, with the house lights up, she would have a far better view of what was happening than trying desperately to keep an eye on people from the crowded dance floor. As she made her way out of the auditorium, she saw Raoul and the inspector still in conversation. Raoul had his back to her but she could see the policeman's face over the Vicomte's shoulder. Whatever Raoul was saying, the other man was obviously taking it seriously.

Presently the inspector saw her, hovering in the bar, and Raoul looked over his shoulder to see what had arrested his companion's attention.

"Ah, Mademoiselle Daaé, the lady of the hour. May I get you an _apéritif_ before your performance?" He came over to her and caught her shoulder gently, steering her back towards the inspector. "What's happening in there?" he muttered under his breath as Christine politely declined his offer of alcohol.

"No thank you, Monsieur le Vicomte, I have a delicate throat. Well," she added in a whisper, "André and Carlotta have both sunk without trace and Madame Giry's tipsy, but other than that, all's well."

"Good, good… Mademoiselle Daaé, Monsieur l'Inspecteur, I don't believe you've met."

"No, we haven't had the pleasure." The policeman gave a small bow. "The Vicomte has told me much about you, Mademoiselle Daaé. I look forward to hearing your voice. I'll be watching out for you most carefully."

It was those words, coupled with the determined look in the older man's eyes, that made Christine certain that Raoul had managed to persuade the policeman into an alliance, by what route she knew not.

"If you'll excuse me, messieurs, I really should be going," she said. "The stage beckons."

"Good luck, mademoiselle," said Raoul. The inspector nodded his acknowledgement and Christine left them, racing through the house till she reached the stage and the wings. A movement in the shadows made her jump, but she suppressed her cry of alarm and looked up, relieved to see that it was only Erik, waiting in seclusion on the fly floor for his cue in their grand plan. He had shed his mask and was dressed once more in the shabby coat that he had first come to the theatre in, looking like a true monster of Paris. She desperately wanted to speak to him, even more desperately wanted to hear his dulcet voice telling her that everything was going to plan and that there was no need to fear, but it would not be prudent to attempt to get up to the fly floor and possibly miss something. She peered out into the house from behind the black drapes, looking for things that were in any degree abnormal. André had reappeared, and seemed to be arguing with Firmin, who in turn seemed to be rather the worse for wear. Raoul was back in the auditorium, the inspector standing grave and stolid in the entrance to the bar. There was still no sign of Carlotta.

"Good view?"

Meg had come up behind her, her eye-wateringly pink ensemble exchanged for dark stagehand's clothes borrowed from Bouquet for the occasion. Christine flashed her a momentary nervous smile; at that point in time she was still too anxious to speak.

"It'll work out, you'll see," her little friend said, before she gave her a hug for good luck. "Floor them."

She scampered up the ladder to the fly floor and took her position beside Erik, counting out ropes and fiddling with knots.

The houselights dimmed and the curtain dropped. Christine took her place centre stage and waited for the heavy velvet drapes to rise again. For a moment she felt sorry for the little curtain puller up on his high gantry who would be witness to everything that was about to unfold beneath him. The orchestra began the introduction to Pamina's aria and Christine began to sing, her eyes searching out figures in the gloom. She could make out Raoul and André's silhouette's both at the very front of the auditorium beside the stage.

All of a sudden, a terrible scream rang out through the house, and Carlotta burst onto the stage from the direction of the dressing room. Her hair and make-up were an artfully arranged mess, and her gown was ripped and frayed, but Christine in her close proximity could tell that costumier's scissors had aided this transformation.

"He's here!" she screamed to the shocked audience. "The Monster of Paris! He attacked me! In my dressing room! The horror! The horror!"

Christine glanced up into the eaves above her at Meg and Erik, both of whom were looking utterly outraged at the complete fabrication. Meg raised her shoulders to question – should they continue their plan or not? Christine gave a barely perceptible nod. It was now or never if they were going to stand any chance of saving their remains of their plot from André and his machinations.

The uproar that had broken out in the auditorium with Carlotta's appearance was nothing compared to the chaos that erupted in response to the next events. In one swift motion, Erik leapt from the fly floor, swinging across the stage on one of the spare ropes and grabbing Christine around the waist as he passed, taking her with him as he landed on the opposite gantry. Meg immediately began tying off the ropes as Erik led Christine up the maze of scaffold that wound its way to the highest lighting gantry at the very top of the stage space. Christine had never been afraid of heights before, but she still felt dizzy when she risked a glance down to see that Raoul and André had bounded onto the stage and were following them. Raoul's intervention was part of the plan, but they had not bargained on the manager suddenly producing heroic tendencies out of nowhere.

"Are you all right?" Erik asked as they reached the top gantry.

"Yes," Christine replied unsurely as a squeak and a dull thud behind them told her that the poor curtain puller had fainted on his little platform. They waited where they were, going neither forward or back, Christine too scared of plummeting to her death on the stage below to make her feet move any further, and they watched Raoul and André's progress up the poles and ropes below them. Even further below, Christine could see that some of the orchestra had climbed out of the pit and were staring, awestruck, up at the spectacle unfolding just under the stage ceiling.

Raoul had the advantage of youth over André and he reached them first.

"We've got to stop," he said. "We'll never shake off André so there's no chance of any sleight of hand. Time for the monster to disappear and die another day."

Erik nodded his agreement and with a dramatic cry of 'unhand her, you loathsome creature!' Raoul smacked him squarely across the jaw.

"You didn't need to make it _that_ realistic," Erik muttered, but he let go of Christine's shaking arm and ran along the gantry as nimbly as a squirrel in the trees before vanishing into one of his long since concealed passageways.

"Are you all right?" Raoul asked Christine, and he looked down at André, who had paused on the fly floor to watch the scene above him. "We've lost him I'm afraid, monsieur," he called down. André nodded and began his descent, but there was something in his eyes that made Christine immediately aware. It was almost a warning, a warning to all of them that it wasn't over, that he knew there was more to this failed kidnapping than met the eye.

"Are you all right?" Raoul repeated. "You're trembling like a leaf, are you hurt?"

"No, I'm just very high up."

Raoul took her a waist in a firm but friendly hold and guided her along towards the ladder just as the curtain puller came round with a groan. On descending, Chrisine found herself entrusted to Bouquet's sturdy arms – Meg had lured him off the fly floor earlier with the promise of free whiskey – and she felt secure again as the strong flyman got her down to the stage, where Madame Giry and Madeleine Pinceau were waiting to exert their mothering influence and ensure, with a woman's delicacy, that she was unharmed from her ordeal.

Before anything could be said, before any attempt to call for order had been made, there was a gunshot and Christine screamed. The entire auditorium became silent and fixed on a point far above them. Christine followed the line of sight to the balcony and could just make out Erik's form cowering behind the railing, André advancing on him with gun outstretched. She was mute with terror, clinging onto Madame Giry for dear life to stop herself fainting dead away.

"André, what are you doing, you madman?" Firmin yelled from the auditorium. "Since when was this a part of the plan?"

"I've got him now, Firmin, and this time he won't slither away!" André sounded slightly crazed as he fired wildly again.

The bullet missed Erik, going far wide and hitting the bracket of one of the chains that held the grand chandelier in place. Someone in the auditorium gave voice to a pre-emptive scream as the metal gave an ear-splitting shriek and the chandelier began to drop, swinging on its other chains so that it was headed directly for the centre of the stage, where Christine, Madeleine and Madame Giry stood frozen in place. Before it could crash down on top of them, however, it came to a screeching halt. Christine risked a glance upward to see that Erik had grabbed onto the flailing end of chain at the end of the balcony, the strain evident on his face even from this far distance. The brackets were acting as pulleys, lessening the weight of the spectacular structure, but only a little, and Erik would not be able to hold on for more than a minute or so. The doors were then flung open and the inspector appeared. Christine stifled her yelp of alarm but she was immediately gratified when the policeman merely grabbed hold of the chain as well to lessen Erik's burden. Madeleine, the first to recover from the shock, pulled her fellow women out of the chandelier's path, and on seeing the ladies out of harm's way, Erik and the inspector let go of the chain. The chandelier fell the last few feet to the stage, shattering into millions of crystal pieces.

Up on the balcony, Erik took one look at André and bolted, the manager following, pushing past the still-winded inspector. By degrees, Christine became aware that Carlotta was screaming again, pushing all kinds of accusations at Christine, that she was the monster's accomplice, that all this was her fault… Christine wondered if the diva had actually been quiet at all since she had rushed onto the stage or if her ears had simply got used to the shrill sound.

"Madame!" roared the panting policeman from the balcony, "be quiet before I arrest you for assaulting a police officer's hearing!"

Affronted, Carlotta closed her mouth and stormed away as the inspector gave chase to Erik and André. Christine found movement returned to her once more, and she ran forward, off the stage and through the crowds towards the main house.

"Christine!" Raoul called after her, eventually catching up to her and clutching her wrist. "Christine! Where are you going?"

"The roof!" she replied. She could think of no other place that Erik could get to easily from the balcony without coming back down into the house where he might meet with more resistance. Raoul nodded his understanding and let her lead him through the upper parts of the theatre. They reached the trap door just as the inspector managed to shoulder it open; André evidently having locked it from the outside.

"Monsieur André!" he shouted. "Drop your weapon!"

Christine stepped out onto the balcony just as André fired. She could see Erik standing at the very edge of the roof, and as he fell backwards, she could see the apology in his burning eyes. There was a loud thud from the ground, and Christine's hands came up to her mouth as a wave of nausea passed over her. If the bullet hadn't killed him then surely the fall would have.

The inspector sprinted forward, looking over the edge of the roof, before turning on his heel and striding back to André, who was still standing like a statue with his pistol aimed. The policeman disarmed and cuffed him in one smooth action, and it was only then that André seemed to come back to himself.

"Monsieur Gilles André, you are under arrest for the wilful murder of a French citizen."

"What? But that was the monster of Paris! You should be congratulating me! I disposed of a wanted criminal!"

"Monsieur André, according to the reports I have heard…" here he nodded to Raoul "…all this 'monster' is guilty of doing is wanting to lead an ordinary life. You, on the other hand…" He dragged the still-protesting André back through the trapdoor.

Christine didn't want to move, but at the same time, another part of her had to see for herself. Still leading Raoul by the hand, she made her way slowly across the roof. She could scarcely believe that less than twenty-four hours before, she and Erik had declared their love and kissed in this very spot. She peered over the edge of the roof and gasped. Erik's body looked so very small and broken on the street below. She buried her face in Raoul's chest and began to sob.

"Oh, Christine…"

She heard Meg run over from the trap door and felt her little friend put her arms around her shoulders. She didn't know how long they stayed in that position, the three who, up until such a short while ago, had been a four.

"Monsieur le Vicomte." It was the inspector's voice. "Monsieur, we do still require a formal identification of the body, if you would be so kind as to oblige? I would not like to place the task on either of the _mesdemoiselles_."

"Of course."

Christine released her hold on Raoul and fell onto her knees, Meg coming round to envelope her friend in a proper hug.

"Oh, Christine, things will look up," the tiny dancer murmured. "As bleak as things are now, you have to remember the good times."

But Christine couldn't. All she could remember was the look in Erik's eyes as he had fallen. Her Angel of Music's wings had failed him, and the man she loved was dead.

Dead.

Her lips formed around the word but she found she couldn't give it voice, the thought overwhelming her senses and sending her spiralling into oblivion, Meg's cold hands just managing to catch her as she collapsed on the roof…

**Note2:** *Kimmeth arms herself with a wooden spoon and places her colander on her head for protection.* Don't kill me! Please! I want to live! There's so much I haven't done, so many beards I haven't discovered! Besides, there's another chapter waiting for you! *Nudges readers in the direction of the final chapter.*


	10. Epilogue

**Note: **Final part of the double bill. Enjoy!

**A Phantom in Paris**

**Epilogue**

Christine looked at her face in the mirror, still obviously pale despite the layers of make-up on top of her skin attempting to make her look like a wholesome maiden. Meg caught her pensive expression and smiled at her encouragingly.

"It'll be interesting to actually watch the performance for once instead of playing a part in it," she mused.

Christine needed no reminding that Meg had left the _Opéra Populaire_ and would be travelling to England in a matter of days. Her audition for the Royal Ballet had been a triumph, and they had only learned of her success the previous evening. As happy as she was that her friend's dreams were on their way to coming true, Christine did not want the one person who had been a constant fixture of her life at the opera house since the beginning to leave her. It felt as if everyone who mattered in her life was moving away from her, and all so soon after one another.

It was the opening night of _The Magic Flute_, three weeks since that fateful night of the ball when Christine's world had come crashing down around her. Although no-one had said anything to her face, the rumours were all too clear to hear. Christine's voice had lost something since that night, although no-one could quite put their finger on what. She was still perfectly competent with a unique vocal quality, but her spirit, the indefinable spark that coursed through her notes as she sang, had died and was refusing to be revived.

Meg patted her on the shoulder.

"Christine, he'll always be with you. He'll always be here. Go out and floor them, for Erik's sake."

Christine nodded and Meg left the room to take her place in the auditorium with a final subdued smile. Christine rested her elbows on the dressing table, placing her head in her hands and forcing herself not to cry and streak tracks down her made-up cheeks. Ever since that fateful night, she had felt as if she was standing still whilst the rest of the world moved on around her, and she had absolutely no desire whatsoever to gain any momentum. She was numb, lost in her world, thinking always of what could have been and never of what actually was, despite the pain that such dreaming inevitably caused her.

"Mademoiselle Daaé, five minutes."

Christine left her dressing room, fixing a determined as opposed to desolate look on her features as she made her way down to the stage. She would still give it her all; it would be an insult to Erik not to be the very best that she could be. At the same time, however, she knew that she would never be able to give her all again. A small part of her whole, the key to the entirety of her voice, was Erik's and his alone, and it had died that night when he did.

She reached the wings, where Pierre and Pinceau were waiting for her and arguing in hushed tones about knots; they'd been having the same argument for the past month. For Pamina's first entrance, she was bound by the fearsome slaver Monostatos – played by the not-at-all fearsome Pierre, who always managed to sound more scared of his whip than Christine did – but when Pinceau's Papageno came to rescue her, he had often found in rehearsals that he could not undo Pierre's knots and Christine had been forced to spend the entire scene with her wrists tied together until one of the stagehands could cut her free.

"Messieurs," she whispered, announcing her presence. They stopped their quiet bickering and waved one of the hands over to tie her, these men knowing far more about knots than the singers did. After she was ready, Pinceau peered at her closely.

"Are you quite well, Mademoiselle Daaé? You look distinctly out of sorts."

"Just nerves," Christine said quickly. Pinceau smiled and put a friendly arm around her shivering shoulders, swathing her in his huge feathered cloak – he and Madame de Balzan had finally won their dispute with the costumiers without the need for hostage-taking.

"You will be perfect, mademoiselle. You always are. Now, good luck."

He gave her an encouraging little push onto the stage and Christine tried to focus and immerse herself in the music as Pierre began his solo. As soon as she had come into the light, she had been aware of something in the corner of her eye, an unnatural reflection from the direction of box five. She longed to get another glimpse but she would not be able to look up in that direction surreptitiously until the middle of her duet with Pinceau. Suddenly, time seemed to be going by extremely slowly, dragging along until she could satisfy her curious desire.

Finally Pinceau began their duet, and Christine started violently, Underneath his rich baritone, she could hear the hint of a softer, slightly higher voice, a tenor singing along melodiously, going up where Pinceau went down. It was a voice that she would know anywhere, even as quiet as it was. It was Erik's voice.

She opened her mouth to sing but no sound came out, and she knew that no sound would come out until she had looked up to box five.

He was there, gazing down upon her, flanked by Meg and Raoul who were grinning like the cats who had got the proverbial cream. He was there, he was real, he was _alive_. Christine felt the spirit that had been absent for three weeks roar into life in her chest once more, and she began to sing with the power and soul that her co-stars had so mourned the loss of, the songbird rekindled and soaring gloriously again. How she did not know, but her Angel of Music had returned to her.

The critics would later say that it was truly her best performance in a lifetime of astonishing prowess, but at that moment, Christine wasn't interested in what the critics made of her. She was far more concerned with immersing herself in the beauty of voice and music that she had not been able to do until now, until Erik returned to his _allouette_. The rest of the performance seemed to rush by in barely a moment, and as soon as it was over, Christine flew from the stage and into the house, caring not that she was still wearing her costume and make-up. She rushed up the grand staircase, much to the astonishment of the audience members coming down it, and she did not stop until she had reached box five. She paused outside for a moment, arrested by a sudden terrible thought. What if he had been a figment of her imagination, grief causing her to lose her sanity?

She flung open the door and there he was, alive and tangible, and sudden anger overcame her.

"You!" she began. "You… I thought you were dead!" But the rest of her vehement speech died in her throat as Erik opened his arms for her and she half-fell, half-ran into them, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face in his collar bone.

"You're alive," she whispered. "You're alive. But how?"

She pulled away from him slightly without breaking hold to peer over his shoulder at her friends, who were waiting off to one side looking sheepish, having pulled the box curtains across and closed the door to afford them some more privacy.

"You knew," Christine said accusingly. "You knew all along, and you let me believe he was dead!"

"Christine, we wanted to tell you," Meg said, her voice genuinely apologetic. "Honestly, we did, but we had to make sure that everything was all right, that the monster had really died. And the plan was so cobbled together at the time that there was no way we could let you know beforehand."

"But how?"

Christine was cut off by Erik sweeping off his mask and pulling her into a kiss.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself," he said as he finally released her. "It's been awful these past few weeks, seeing you so melancholy and being unable to assist."

"Couldn't you have pretended to be a ghost?"

Erik laughed.

"I think the _Opéra Populaire_ has too many ghosts already," he said.

Christine shook her head.

"I still don't see how… And the inspector…" She glanced at Raoul. "Did you corrupt the incorruptible?"

Raoul smiled.

"No, I didn't even try. Why don't you sit down, Christine? It's rather a long story."

Christine did as she was bid and Meg, Erik and Raoul began the tale of Erik's survival. Raoul, it transpired, had for the most part just told the inspector the honest truth about Erik's circumstances (tactfully omitting Christine's feelings for him and vice versa), his suspicions concerning André's behaviour, and their plan to 'kill off' the monster. When they had aborted their plan in the wake of André's intervention, Erik had doubled back and told Meg that he was going to try and head to the roof. Meg had ten taken one of the mannequins that they had originally been going to use for the plan and waited in the costume store room, directly below the stand-off on the roof.

When Erik had fallen, or rather, jumped, he had landed in the hay wagon usually parked outside the theatre for the cab horses who would wait there, and Meg had thrown the mannequin out of the window before running up to the climactic scene above her. Christine remembered seeing the hay wagon below her, but she had thought nothing of it, never suspecting that Erik might be hidden in it.

"But what about you identifying the body?" Christine asked Raoul.

"Ah. That's when I stopped being quite so truthful to Monsieur l'Inspecteur," said Raoul. "I saw that it wasn't Erik as soon as I got close enough, but I didn't let on and he merely put a sheet over him and waited for the public gravediggers, who never care whether they're putting a person or a sack of vegetables into a box, as long as the police pay them."

The plan had not gone completely smoothly – André's bullet had badly grazed Erik's shoulder and the wounds had taken a long time to begin to heal, which was why they had not announced Erik's continued survival sooner. In Christine's eyes, it no longer mattered. He was there, he was alive, he was with her once more, and this time the shadows of the monster would haunt them no longer.

There was a knock at the door and Erik hastily resumed his mask before Meg opened it. Firmin and Madame Giry were standing there, and Christine received the distinct impression that they had been holding hands until the door opened.

"Ah, Mademoiselle Daaé, an excellent first impression for the new season," said Firmin, kissing her on both cheeks. Christine could smell the wine on his breath. "And… who's this?" He looked at Erik, raising an eyebrow at his slightly unusual appearance.

"This is Monsieur Erik…" Meg struggled for a surname.

"… Chanteur," Erik finished, extending a hand to André, who took it unsurely. "Christine's tutor. I'm afraid I have been absent on commission in Persia for the last year."

"Mademoiselle Daaé's tutor!" Firmin began to shake his hand vigorously. "Well, if I may say, monsieur, she is exquisite, you should be extremely proud."

"Richard…" Madame Giry began softly, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. Firmin looked down to see that he was in danger of shaking Erik's hand off; behind the mask Christine could see that Erik's eyes were narrowed in pain – that was his injured arm.

"Ah, yes, sorry." Firmin let go. "Well, a spectacular performance all round. And Mademoiselle Giry, congratulations on your forthcoming voyage, the _Opéra Populaire_ wishes you the best of luck at the Royal Ballet."

"Thank you, monsieur."

"And Monsieur le Vicomte, I hear you've been thinking about some business ventures in England too."

"I, well, erm…"

Christine looked at Raoul to see that he had gone bright red. Meg, grinning wider than Christine thought physically possible, slipped her arm through his slyly.

"Well, we'll leave you all to your own devices," said Firmin. "Congratulations again!"

The four were left alone once more.

"Well, I think that brings things to a most satisfactory conclusion," said Meg. "Come on, Monsieur le Vicomte, I think we ought to give Monsieur Chanteur and Mademoiselle Daaé a little time to themselves to catch up, seeing as though he has been away in Persia and hasn't seen her for a year…"

"Of course," said Raoul. "You will come and dine with us, though? I've booked us a private room at _La Perle de Notre-Dame_."

Christine nodded and Raoul and Meg left the room. As Erik removed his mask and welcomed her into his arms once more, Christine smiled. As Meg had said, the tale of the monster in Paris looked set for a most satisfactory conclusion…

**Fin**

**Note2:** For those of you without French, _chanteur_ means 'singer'. Very unimaginative of me, I know…

*Kimmeth peers out from underneath her colander.*

Am I forgiven now?


End file.
